


The Red String of Fate

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Awesome Skye (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), BAMF Phil Coulson, Canon-Typical Violence, Centipede Group, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Torture, POV Phil Coulson, POV Skye (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Obelisk (Marvel), not Grant Ward friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:41:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Agents of SHIELD in which Coulson and Skye are soulmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tayryn/gifts), [Wolfsbride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsbride/gifts).



> Oh boy! This fic has eaten my brain this month. It's ridiculously long and romantic, and AU as hell. I've borrowed dialogue and scenes from Seeds, TRACKS and The Magical Place, but the rest of S1 and S2 aren't here. (Oh and this was begun and finished before 2:09 aired, so whatever revelations about Skye that episode contains will not be reflected in this story.)

Agent Phil Coulson looks the pair of hackers over: one's a young woman in her early twenties with brown hair and eyes. She's about five foot five tall and American-Asian. Her friend is a young man, around a decade older than her, and about five inches taller. He has brown eyes and hair, including a beard and moustache.

The man, one Miles Lydon, looks cocky – he's probably had brushes with law enforcement agencies in the past, and enjoys the attention he gets from being arrested. The young woman, whose name he hasn't been able to discover, is keeping her eyes lowered and is fiddling with the various bracelets that encircle her wrists, but at one point, while Ward is talking to Lydon, she glances up at Coulson and her gaze is open, direct, and thoughtful, as if she's appraising him as much as he's profiling her. He's not sure why, but the look she gives him makes him faintly uneasy, even though it's non-threatening, non-judgemental even. (Miles is very loudly airing his views on the 'scary men in dark suits' as he keeps referring to the SHIELD agents.)

"Agent Ward, take him next door," Coulson orders, and the younger man obeys, then Coulson turns back to the young woman.

"What's your name?"

"Skye, with an 'e' at the end."

"Last name?"

She shakes her head. "No last name, no family name, no family," she recites in a bored monotone, as if tired of repeating herself.

For some reason the knowledge that she's an orphan like him catches at him, and he has to swallow before he can continue. "What is your relationship to Mr Lydon?"

That earns him a hard stare before she answers, "We're both members of the Rising Tide, and I live with him."

"Are you lovers?" He asks the question in as impersonal a tone as he can manage, then wonders why the possibility of a positive answer seems to scrape at his nerves.

She rolls her eyes at him. "That's a very pretentious way of describing it," she says.

"Is it?" he asks, surprised by the assertion.

She snorts softly. "Yes it is, Mr Middle-Class Agent."

He quirks an eyebrow at her, then asks with genuine curiosity, "How would you describe it then?"

She gives a quick shrug of her shoulders. "He's the man I live with, we look out for each other, and occasionally we fuck."

He hopes he's not blushing in response to this, although her matter-of-fact tone makes her words sound less erotic than they might.

He asks her questions about her role within the Rising Tide, and after about forty minutes, he reaches out a hand for one of the bottles of water standing on the table between them, and Skye immediately asks, "What's that?"

He does blush this time, acutely embarrassed not by her curiosity, but by the fact that he forgot himself. 

He starts to withdraw his hand, wanting to pull his shirt cuff back down over his wrist again, but two small, warm hands capture his hand in a light grasp. He knows that he could easily pull his hand free, but something stops him, and he almost holds his breath as Skye stares at the red mark encircling his left wrist.

"I don't know," he admits, and she looks up at him with something besides curiosity in her brown eyes. He finds himself explaining, though he doesn't know why he feels compelled to do so to a total stranger.

"About eighteen months ago, I nearly died," he says, then pauses when her grip on his wrist seems to tighten. "When I woke up afterwards, this mark was on my wrist. None of my medical team could explain where it came from or why it's there."

"I can," she says softly, and he stares at her in wide-eyed disbelief.

"What?"

She fixes her gaze on his face, then slowly guides his free hand to slide the many bracelets on her left wrist upwards, revealing exactly the same red markings around her wrist.

He stares in astonishment, noting that the two marks are absolutely identical: both of them looking like someone's tied a knotted piece of red string around their respective wrists.

She's still holding onto his wrist as she begins to speak. "There's an old Chinese legend that two who are destined by fate and the old lunar matchmaker god, Yue Xia Lao, to be soulmates are linked by a piece of red string which runs from the man's thumb to the woman's pinky finger."

"Soulmates," he repeats, wondering at the sudden heat that seems to be flowing from his fingertips, up his arm, and into his left side until – and he knows how ridiculous this would sound were he to repeat it to anyone – it suffuses his heart with warmth.

"You felt that, didn't you?" she asks in a low voice, and he doesn't bother to pretend that he doesn't know what she means because he's quite certain from the way she now seems to be glowing as she gazes at him, that she felt exactly the same sensation as he did.

She tangles her fingers in his, then says quietly, "Eighteen months ago was the Battle of New York."

"Yes."

"This mark appeared on my wrist on the same day as that Battle. Is that when you nearly died?"

He nods. "A few hours before the Battle began," he admits.

"What happened?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Loki stabbed me through the heart with an alien spear."

Her grip on his fingers tightens even as she brings her free hand up to cover her mouth. "I'm sorry," she says in a low voice that's choked with emotion.

"Why are you sorry?" he asks, confused.

"Because I didn't know SHIELD was like that. That an Agent would die in the line of duty. All my life, SHIELD's been about keeping secrets."

She's so obviously distraught by now that he moves around the table to sit on the chair beside hers. She immediately turns towards him, reaching out to him, and after only a moment's hesitation he opens his arms, allowing her to lean into him as she sobs silently against his chest.

He holds her carefully, enough to comfort her with his touch, without being intrusive.

Eventually her sobs subside and he gives her his pocket handkerchief, which earns him a watery chuckle.

"What?"

"Mr Charm School," she says in a teasing tone, before scrubbing at her face. "Do you know how many people carry a pocket handkerchief these days?"

He can't resist giving her a little smirk. "Not many, huh?"

"Probably only you and Captain America these days," she says, smiling at him now. He doesn't know what expression she catches on his face, but she chuckles again. "You're a fanboy, aren't you?"

He shakes his head, less in denial than a refusal to be drawn on his love of all things Captain America.

"Can I ask you something?" he says instead.

Her expression sobers, and he realises that he had failed to notice before that she's a very pretty young woman, especially when she smiles. "You're the SHIELD agent," she tells him. "I'm just a hacktivist. You can ask me whatever you want to know."

"What did you mean when you said, 'All my life, SHIELD's been about keeping secrets'?"

She stares hard at him for a long moment, then slips two fingers inside her shirt and pulls out a memory card from – well, inside her bra would be his bet.

"This is all that I know about myself," she says, and gives him the card.

He takes it from her, turns the laptop on the table around, and fits the card into the slot. 

"It's not a lot," she adds, and he quickly sees that she's right. There's a few photographs of anonymous people, presumably SHIELD agents, taken out in the field, and a single document, from a St Agnes Orphanage, which has been redacted by SHIELD. Looking at it, he realises that she's been an orphan all her life, unlike him, and that hurts him more than he'd have expected it to do.

"This is why I joined the Rising Tide," she tells him when he hands back the memory card. "It's why I learned to crack systems, why I taught myself CS in the first place. I need to know who I am and where I come from."

She's fiddling with the memory card as she speaks and he places his hand over hers. 

"I'd like to help," he says, and her hands immediately still underneath his.

"Why?" Her tone is half disbelief, half hope, he thinks, and he wonders if no one has ever done anything for her without making it into an obligation of some kind.

"Because I'm better placed than you are to dig into SHIELD's records," he says. When she continues to stare, he adds, "I like you, and I'd like to help you."

She looks at him, her expression still uncertain, then, after long moments staring into his eyes (or possibly his soul, he thinks, then wonders at the thought), she nods.

"Thank you." She swallows, then says, "About the other thing – " She stops, looking uncertain again.

"The other thing?" he asks, confused.

She slips her hands from under his, then taps his left wrist with her left hand.

"Oh." He swallows, then says carefully, "I'm not sure I really believe in the concept of a soulmate – "

"Not, it's okay." She interrupts him quickly. "I understand. I know I'm not at all your type of girl. A classy guy like you would obviously prefer someone sophisticated and elegant, not a high school dropout with a dodgy background."

"Skye – " He tries to interrupt her in turn, but she keeps talking.

"I mean, I saw the car you rolled up in – a 1962 Chevrolet Corvette – a really classy car. The only vehicle I've ever owned is a van, which I lived in for two years." 

She shakes her head emphatically, and Coulson takes advantage of her pause to speak.

"Skye, I wasn't turning you down just now. You didn't give me time to finish what I was trying to say."

She gives him a surprised look, and he smiles at her. "While I'm not sure that I believe in the concept of a soulmate, I am interested in getting to know you."

"You are?"

He nods. "Maybe I can take you out for a ride in my classy car and buy you dinner." He smirks when her eyes light up. "She's called Lola."

Skye gives him a frankly disbelieving look, then starts laughing. "Do the other Agents know how much of a dork you are?" she asks breathlessly.

He pretends to scowl at her, but he feels cheered at having made her laugh: she'd seemed so serious, sad even, when he first started talking to her.

"Why don't we have dinner this evening?" he suggests. "I'm going to be in town for a couple of days at least."

She seems to hesitate for a moment, and he wonders at it, then realises that dinner might be too much, too soon.

"Or we could just go for a drink," he says.

"Maybe a drink, and then dinner later if we feel like it?" she suggests.

"If you like." He smiles, pleased at the suggestion. "Where shall I pick you up?"

She gives him an address which he immediately puts into his phone, then tells her what time he'll be by.

She goes out, and a few minutes later, Ward comes in, looking pretty pissed off. 

"That guy's so mouthy," he observes with a snarl.

"Mouthy enough to give us what we wanted?" Coulson asks, not looking up form his laptop, where he's already filing a preliminary report for HQ.

"Yeah, I got him to spill," Ward says in a tone of satisfaction.

"I trust you didn't hurt him?" Coulson asks sharply.

"Not much," Ward says with a careless shrug.

"I've told you before, we don't hurt the civilians unnecessarily. The last thing SHIELD needs is a lawsuit."

"Don't worry, I didn't do any lasting damage." He doesn't go so far as to roll his eyes, but Coulson knows that's only because Ward doesn't want to be pulled up on an insubordination charge.

"Well next time, don't use force at all unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Sir."

Coulson drops his eyes back to his laptop and resumes typing, and after a moment the younger agent asks, "Was the girl any use?"

Coulson shakes his head. "She's just a hacker – she does whatever Mr Lydon asks."

"Pretty little thing, though," Ward muses. "I can see why Lydon would keep her around. Asian girls are hot."

Coulson makes himself not react to this comment, although he wants to reprimand Ward sharply for his lack of respect towards Skye. He's been an agent long enough, however, to know that to a Specialist like Ward, sex is just a tool of the trade: Ward knows how to seduce a mark, but he'd have no idea how to woo a woman.

They head back to the safe house where they're staying for the few days they're in LA, and Coulson decides to grab a shower and change before he goes out to meet Skye. He's aware that he's beginning to feel a little nervous: he hasn't been on a date since before the Battle of New York, and it's even longer than that since he last went on a first date with a woman.

On the other hand, as Skye herself pointed out, she's not his usual type of woman, so he ought to be more relaxed with her, and he probably would be if it wasn't for the whole soulmate thing. Whether or not _he_ believes in the concept, she seems to, and he has no desire to mock her beliefs, or even to hurt her; he suspects she's been hurt by others rather often in the past, and he's no intention of being one of their number.

When Coulson emerges from his room he sees Ward sitting on the couch, a disassembled gun laid out on the coffee table in front of him. The younger agent looks over at his superior in obvious surprise, and Coulson says, "I'm meeting a contact. Not sure how late I'll be back so don't worry if I'm not back before you go to bed."

"Sure you don't want me with you?"

Coulson forces himself to smile. "Your presence would be a little off-putting to my contact."

"Ah. Yes sir."

The smirk on Ward's face is very knowing and Coulson tightens his lips in an effort not to say anything. The fact that Ward doesn't know he's meeting Skye doesn't mean he likes the Specialist's tone. He just nods, however, then lets himself out of the safe house and climbs into Lola. He smiles slightly as he recalls Skye's obvious appreciation for the car and decides that he's going to have to show off Lola's paces at some point this evening.

When he pulls up outside the address Skye had given him he's slightly alarmed to see she's got a laden backpack on the sidewalk at her feet, and a laptop bag slung over one shoulder.

"Skye?" He's already half way out of his seat, but she waves him back, opens the passenger door, then puts her bags in the car.

"What's happened?" he asks softly.

"Miles threw me out," she says, her voice hitching slightly.

"Threw you out? Why?"

She shakes her head. "I don't want to talk about it here," she says, and he nods, then pulls away from the curb.

"What's happened?" he repeats once they're several blocks away.

"I told him you were taking me out for a drink," she says, her eyes resolutely averted. "He wanted to know why, and when I eventually told him about us possibly being soulmates, he lost it."

"He didn't hit you, did he?" Coulson demands, then sees her flinch away from the anger in his voice. "Sorry." He speaks in a gentler tone, then reaches out to touch her arm briefly.

"He didn't hit me. Not for want of trying, but I've been looking after myself for a long time, so he didn't get me." A beat, then she adds, "I hit him. Well, head butted would be more accurate."

Having been on the end of a head butt himself in the past Coulson hides a wince at this information.

"Miles told me I was selling out, starting something with you. I told him we were just going out for a drink, but I don't think he was listening by that point." She sighs. "So I just packed my stuff as quick as I could, then left him to it."

"I'm sorry," Coulson says.

"Don't be," she says firmly. "It isn't your fault."

"But – " he begins, but she cuts him off ruthlessly.

"No buts, Agent Coulson. It's not your fault. And it wasn't a great romance, wasn't even a love affair, so I'm not gonna cry over it."

He sighs, then nods. "If you want, I can arrange to have him arrested."

She gives him a startled look, then says, "Don't even joke about that."

He doesn't bother to tell her that he wasn't joking.

There's a current of tension between them when they reach the bar, but not a nice tension, so Coulson begins making small talk about places he likes to eat when he's in LA, and eventually Skye relaxes, and the conversation becomes more personal. After about thirty minutes, he suggests dinner, and she agrees quickly, and he wonders, briefly, whether she is actually hungry, or just worried about where the next meal is coming from – although if she expects him not to help her out in her homeless state, she's going to get a surprise.

They've had starters and the main course of their meal when Coulson gets a call from Ward, and excuses himself to Skye so he can take it outside.

"Bad news?" she asks when he comes back to the table.

"Not good news, at any rate," he says, signalling the waiter. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to go. There's a guy with apparently superhuman strength going crazy in a factory a few blocks from here."

Skye's face goes from curiosity to deeply worried at his words, and he frowns as he pays the bill. "What's wrong?" he asks, pulling out her chair so she can get up.

"Tell you outside," she says, and he nods, then leads the way back to where he parked Lola. He leans against the side of the car, arms crossed over his chest, and looks enquiringly at Skye.

"The guy with the superhuman strength – what's his name?"

Coulson shakes his head. "I don't know that yet. Why? Do you know something about this?"

"It might be Mike Peterson," she says. "If it is, please take me with you – I can help."

He frowns, doubtful, but pulls open the passenger door. "Get in."

She does and he rounds the car, then climbs in. "Explain, please," he asks as he pulls out into the traffic.

"You know about the Centipede Group, right?"

He repeats the name, then shakes his head. "It's not familiar."

"But you must," she says insistently. " _I_ do, and I've just got a laptop I won in a bet. You've got all those government funded resources working for you."

"Nope," he says, "never heard of them. You'd better tell me – the short version for now."

He listens attentively as Skye outlines what she's learned about the Centipede Group, which seems to boil down to dangerous experiments on male subjects that use a combination of technology and something medical that results in the men gaining superhuman strength, but emotional instability.

"How do you know all this?" asks Coulson, wondering why on earth SHIELD doesn't know any of it.

She barely refrains from rolling her eyes, which makes him bite back a smile – he likes her sassy attitude, though he probably shouldn't.

"I've been listening in on conversations in their lab," she says, "and hacking their files."

He frowns. "But why would you be monitoring them?"

"Because a company that's trying to create superheroes, and is causing them to go boom is probably very dodgy, don't you think?"

"Almost certainly," he agrees. He still can't see why Skye would get involved – it's not as if it's her job, after all, but he doesn't bother pursuing it because they've arrived at the factory.

He and Skye approach cautiously, Coulson in front. He'd have liked to tell her to wait in the car, but the kind of woman who'll investigate a potentially dangerous company all by herself isn't likely to agree to sit idly by while he assesses the situation.

As they enter the factory floor space a small number of people, all of them workers as far as he can see, come rushing towards them, all of them clearly frightened.

"Where's Mike?" calls Skye, and someone points back the way they've run. Coulson picks up his pace as he hears bangs and yells up ahead.

He glances at Skye. "Please stay behind me until we can see what's going on."

"But – " she begins, but he cuts her off.

"Skye, I'm the trained agent, you're an unarmed civilian, and apparently my soulmate. If you get hurt or killed I'll never forgive myself, so please, stay back for now."

Her eyes go wide at his mention of them potentially being soulmates, then she gives a quick nod before dropping back a few paces behind him.

They find the source of the noise, which proves to be a tall, dark-skinned man whose face is glowing red-orange.

Coulson doesn't jump when Skye catches hold of his arm just above his wrist, but he gives her a questioning look.

"That glowing means trouble," she says quickly, her voice low. "Whatever they've done to him affects his blood, and when they glow like that, it means they're close to exploding."

"That's not good," Coulson says, with what he is aware is massive understatement.

"You're not kidding me. Last time it happened, the guy blew up the Centipede lab as well as himself. Killed two people, too – two of Centipede's people."

He blinks. "That was a Centipede lab – the one that blew up two days ago?"

"Yeah."

He bites back a curse of annoyance at SHIELD's total failure of intel, then says, "You should get back to the car."

"And leave you here to possibly blow up alone?" she demands, in an are-you-crazy tone. "No. Besides, I know Mike slightly. I might be able to calm him down."

Before Coulson can voice any objections she walks past him, a bold, confident figure who makes his heart ache with admiration for her bravery.

"Mike? It's Skye. You remember me? We met in the park the other day when Ace was flying his kite."

The man turns quickly, obviously surprised by Skye's appearance, and Coulson does his best to look calm and non-threatening, glad that he hadn't taken out his weapon. Mike's gaze sweeps over him, then focuses back on Skye.

"Skye," he acknowledges, the angry red-orange glow beginning to fade from his face.

"Mike." Apparently fearless, she slowly moves closer to him, then stops right beside him before asking, "What's up?"

"Gary refused to give me my old job back. Said I wasn't strong enough to make quota before, when I hurt my back that time. But I'm a lot stronger now."

"So I see." She looks around at the evidence of Mike's strength, and Coulson, looking around too, catches sight of a guy lying atop a pile of scattered pipes. The man has a few bruises on his face, but he appears angry rather than hurt.

"Perhaps you'd like to come and have a coffee with me and my new friend, Phil?" Skye suggests. "And we can talk a bit about what the doctor did to help you after you hurt your back."

Coulson sees Mike looking at him, and smiles.

"You're friends with a suit now?" Mike asks.

Skye laughs, and puts her hand on Mike's arm. "You know me, Mike, I'm a friendly girl."

To Coulson's surprise Mike chuckles. "Yeah, you are. You should be careful though. You never know what kind of person you're befriending."

"No, but I know what kind of person you are Mike – a decent, hardworking father who's had some bad luck, but still tries to do right by his son."

Coulson does his best not to gape as she loops her arm through Mike's and walks the other man over to join him.

"Phil, this is my friend, Mike. Mike, this is my new friend, Phil. Let's go and get some coffee."

Coulson catches her eye and smiles proudly at her. His heart feels like it's about to burst at the deft way she's handled the situation, and he knows that, soulmate or not, he definitely wants Skye in his life.

As they stroll out of the factory the local cops turn up, and Coulson nods for Skye to keep walking with Mike while he deals with them. She nods back, then mouths the name of a local coffee shop, not a chain he notes without surprise, and he smiles to show he's got the message.

When he arrives fifteen minutes later, Skye's drinking a chocolate milkshake, while Mike's got a cup of herbal tea: camomile and honey, he thinks. He joins them in their booth, and listens intently as Skye guides Mike through an account of his dealings with the Centipede Group, and Coulson's full of admiration for the way she elicits the information without sounding judgemental, or anything less than totally sympathetic.

He can't help thinking that no matter how good she is at hacking, Skye's actually wasted doing that – she would be an absolute gift to the Index Asset Evaluation and Intake team. He's never met anyone with so much natural empathy before, and he wonders where it comes from; their conversation over dinner had briefly touched on her childhood, which had been spent shuttling between St Agnes Orphanage and various foster homes, but there seems to be no bitterness about her fate in her. She had, in fact, been pretty dismissive of the situation, and as far as he can tell she has turned out remarkably sane and compassionate, more than many others might have done. She is a genuinely good person, and he's only ever met one other person like that, and he'd spent seventy years encased in ice.

By the time they're ready to leave the coffee shop forty minutes later, Coulson has made two decisions – the first is to get help for Mike Peterson from SHIELD, and he immediately makes a call to the local agent to enlist his aid. His second decision is to offer Skye a job.

He warns Mike that the SHIELD SciTech people are going to want to explore and analyse everything about him and his Centipede device, the piece of technology on his arm that delivers the serum which has given him superhuman strength, but promises that no one will dissect him. The younger man seems resigned to the prospect of becoming something of a guinea pig, and only cares about letting his son – and his sister Mindy, with whom his son's currently staying – know what's going on. When the local agent arrives, Coulson takes him aside and briefs him succinctly, then arranges for Mike to visit Mindy and Ace before he leaves LA.

Once they're gone, Coulson turns to Skye. "I'd like to make you an offer. Come and join my team."

"You have a team?" she asks, grinning at him.

He smirks. "I have a team, a flying car, and a really great plane."

" _Flying_ car?" Her tone is disbelieving.

"Sure. Wanna see it?"

"Oh yes please!" She sounds like a kid who's been given the best gift ever, and it makes him laugh softly. He offers her his arm.

"C'mon then."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye begins to settle in aboard the Bus, and makes a discovery about her past, while Coulson begins the investigation into the Centipede Group.

Agent Ward doesn't like her, Agent May seems indifferent to her, and Fitz and Simmons, or FitzSimmons as they more often seem to be known, welcome her with open arms aboard the Bus. Fitz, she suspects, is all set to have a crush on her, while Simmons, she thinks, is actually in the closet, but Skye doesn't intend to mention it except possibly very obliquely, probably when they're on their own.

Agent Coulson, or AC as she's dubbed him, seems unaware of the currents swirling through the Bus, as the teams calls their plane. She suspects, however, that Coulson is a lot more aware than he's letting on, and that he wants to see if she can find her place in this small group.

The first morning after she comes aboard she wakes early, which is the norm for her the first couple of nights in a new place. She makes her way to the galley for some coffee and finds May in the lounge practising Tai Chi. She gives the older agent a nod, but keeps walking, not wanting to interrupt. She'd lived with a Chinese foster family for a couple of months back in her early teens, and had been taught the basics of Tai Chi, but after she'd been sent back to St Agnes, she'd stopped practising. She wonders if May would let her join her sessions.

She's finishing her coffee and wondering if she wants granola or toast for breakfast when she becomes aware that May's finished her exercises and entered the galley behind her. Skye murmurs a good morning, then moves into the corner seat with her coffee, keeping out of the other woman's way.

"Toast?" 

May's quiet question pulls Skye out of her reverie several minutes later, and she looks up in surprise, then smiles.

"Thanks." She accepts the offered plate, then sits opposite the agent at May's gesture of invitation.

"AC said you and he have been friends a long time," she ventures as she's buttering the second slice of toast.

"AC?" asks May. "He's letting you call him that?"

Skye shrugs. "I guess so. I mean, I called him that yesterday, and he didn't tell me not to." She smiles. "I think it suits him – he's pretty cool."

There's a flicker in the agent's eyes and it only takes a moment for Skye to realise that May's amused.

"Yes," she says. "In answer to your question – Coulson and I have known each other for a long time."

Skye nods, sensing that May's happy to go on waiting for her to continue. "Have you seen the mark on his wrist?"

May's eyes widen fractionally, then she stares at Skye's wrists, which are hidden beneath the cuffs of her blue plaid shirt.

"You're her, then," she says, her tone half question, half resignation.

Skye blinks. "Her who?" she asks, forgetting her grammar in her curiosity.

"His soulmate."

Of course. She should've realised that May would recognise what the mark meant just as Skye herself had done.

"Well – " she begins, then shrugs, and pushes her sleeve up just far enough for May to see her left wrist.

The older woman leans forward, then slips her left hand under Skye's and lifts her wrist to examine the 'red string' more closely.

"Well, that's a complication no one expected," May observes as she releases Skye's wrist. 

"What do you mean?" Skye asks immediately, feeling both curious and a little uneasy at the agent's tone.

"Coulson hasn't been in a relationship since his near-death experience," May tells her. "But you're not his normal type."

Skye almost rolls her eyes at this, but manages to restrain herself. "Yeah, I figured that out by myself yesterday. But you know no one ever said relationships are easy. Don't worry, though – I'm not going to complicate things – and if AC doesn't want to pursue this, I'm not going to be the one to push it." She shakes her head. "The way I see it, AC brought me aboard your Bus to help SHIELD with the whole Centipede thing, since I know a helluva lot more about it than you lot do. Once I've done that job, I can walk away. I'm quite capable of looking after myself, and since I'm getting paid while I'm here, I won't even care whether or not I have a man in my life."

Skye gets to her feet. "I've no intention of distracting Agent Coulson, or of complicating either his or anyone else's life. Excuse me."

Skye stalks away, angry at herself for feeling hurt by Agent May's reaction, but feeling even more stupid for even bringing the matter up in the first place. She decides there and then never to mention it again.

She returns to her bunk, and grabs her laptop from her bag. Putting it down on the bed, she settles cross-legged atop the covers, and starts to upload her data on Centipede to the SHIELD server.

She grows absorbed, her attention so fully focused on what she's doing that she remains unaware of Ward and FitzSimmons getting up and going off for breakfast, and when someone knocks on her half-open bunk door some time later, she just says, "Yeah", without bothering to look up from the laptop.

"I thought you might prefer to come and work in my office."

Coulson's voice takes her by surprise and she stares blankly at him for a long moment before processing his words.

"Oh hey AC," she says in as cheerful a tone as she can.

"Good morning, Skye."

"I'm good," she tells him, answering his question belatedly.

He smirks at her. "I know that. I'd like you to come and work in my office, though, as it'll make it easier for us to discuss your data, and to strategise as well."

She considers refusing in light of her conversation with May at breakfast, but if she did that, he'd almost certainly want to know why she was refusing, and not only would it cause problems between herself and Coulson, it might also cause problems between him and May. And that's the last thing she wants to do.

"Sure, I'd like that."

He smiles, then steps back, waiting for her to step out of her bunk, then he leads the way up to his office. The night before he'd only shown her where the bunks, the galley, and the bathrooms were (besides introducing her to the rest of his team), so she's seeing some areas of the Bus for the first time, and she realises that last night she hadn't properly appreciated just how big it is.

When they reach his office, Coulson gestures to a large leather armchair. "Make yourself at home," he says, then clears a small side table, before bringing it over and setting it beside the armchair.

"Wow," Skye says when she slides into the chair. "You're spoiling me."

He gives her a surprised look, but doesn't follow up on the comment, leaving her both relieved and disappointed. 

"Tell me about the lab that exploded," he requests, settling into his own chair behind his desk, so Skye tells him everything she's been able to learn over the last few weeks, either by hacking their files or listening to their conversations within the lab via a radio microphone.

He listens attentively, asking relevant questions, and taking notes. She likes the way he listens to her – she noticed it yesterday too – he listens as if what she's saying is the most important thing anyone's ever told him, and while she's sure he uses the same technique on everyone, she'll admit that it makes her feel special. Few people in her life so far have listened to her as Coulson does – she's far more used to being ignored, or merely tolerated. 

Once she's finished, he gets to his feet, fastening the top button of his jacket again.

"We'd better go and have a look at this lab," he says. "FitzSimmons will probably be able to find something useful in its remains, knowing all the toys they've stocked our lab with."

He picks up a tablet from the desk. "Here." He passes it to her. "Take this, rather than hauling around your laptop."

She grins as she accepts it from him. "Nice," she says, and he smirks at her. She wonders if he realises just what effect that smirk has on her – if he did, he'd probably stop, though, so she's not going to tell him.

Coulson drives the SUV, allowing Skye to ride up front beside him, while FitzSimmons ride in the back. The scientists seem to talk non-stop, their sentences either over-lapping, or more often, completing each other's thoughts. Skye find herself smiling as she listens, and she catches Coulson's eye more than once to see him smiling too in a rather conspiratorial manner that makes her want to giggle.

Once at the former lab, FitzSimmons do clever things with their tech toys, leaving Skye and Coulson to explore, and it's Skye who spots and picks up a slagged security camera that one of Fitz's 'dwarfs' is hovering over in a corner.

They're back at street level and making their way over to the SUV when a couple of thugs jump them. Coulson yells "Go, go, go!" at FitzSimmons, and Skye has barely registered the scientists running for it before one of the guys has picked her up and dangles her several feet off the ground by the neck, choking her in the process. He's holding her at arm's length so that she can't reach him to kick him since his arms are longer than her wildly flailing legs.

She's only vaguely aware of Coulson fighting the second thug because she's basically being choked to death by a man whose face is turning a familiar orange-red, and she silently curses that she cannot shout a warning to Coulson to tell him to get clear because she's beginning to lose consciousness.

AC-S-AC-S-AC 

When Skye comes to it feels as if her throat's on fire, and she feels dizzy. She opens her eyes carefully, blinking at the bright lights above her, then Coulson's face comes into view. She feels a mixture of relief and panic at the sight of him – there's a bruise darkening his left cheekbone, and a neat row of sutures above his right eye, but he gives her a gentle smile when he sees her.

"Hey," he says, his tone telling her he's relieved she's awake.

She tries to answer him, but finds she has no voice, and she looks up at him panic-stricken. He clasps her right hand in his, then cups her cheek with his other hand.

"It's okay," he says in a soft voice. "Your throat's bruised from being nearly choked. Simmons says it's only a temporary thing, and it should be back to normal in a day or two." He lets go of her to pick up a glass of pale yellow liquid from somewhere beside the bed, and then he slides his left arm under her shoulders and lifts her up.

"Drink this. Simmons said it would help."

She drinks it, pulling a face at the weird taste, and he smirks at her, his expression teasing as if he knows how much she wants to express her dislike verbally. He sets the glass aside, then eases her back down onto the pillows.

She badly wants to know what happened after she blacked out, but she has no way to ask him, but he must see the questions in her eyes because he takes her hand in both of his, and begins to talk.

"FitzSimmons have designed a gun – Fitz calls it a Night-Night gun – which fires Dendrotoxin bullets, which send people to sleep, hence the name." He pauses to smirk at her when she rolls her eyes, then resumes, "Apparently Agent May had suggested that they bring the Night-Night gun with them because we were going to investigate a Centipede lab. So when I yelled at them to run, Simmons grabbed the gun and shot the man who was attacking me, then she gave me the gun, and I shot the guy throttling you. Simmons doesn't have any firearms training, and he was holding you in such a way that she couldn't get a clean shot on him as she had on my attacker, but I was able to take him down."

She squeezes his hand, and gazes at him intently, trying to convey her thanks wordlessly, and he smiles, then squeezes her hand in return.

"While the two Centipede men were attacking us, Fitz got onto May, and she brought the Bus directly to us, and while Fitz and Ward carried the two thugs aboard, I carried you, once Simmons had assured herself – and me – that you hadn't been choked to death."

Skye can't help wishing she'd been conscious for that – it doesn't seem fair that she missed Coulson carrying her.

As she hears a door behind him slide open and closed, Coulson looks around, and a moment later Simmons appears.

"Hello Skye." She comes closer to the bed, and Coulson, who'd already released her hand, steps back to give Simmons room. He moves to the side of the space around the bed, and she stares at him until he gives her a reassuring smile. She turns her attention back to Simmons, who's busy checking all her vitals.

When Simmons has finished, she passes Skye a tablet computer. "Fitz has downloaded an app for you," she says. "You type, it speaks, just until you get your voice back."

Skye takes the tablet eagerly, opens the app, and begins typing as Simmons tells Coulson, "Skye will sound a bit Dalek-y, I'm afraid sir, but it's better than not being able to speak at all."

"Thank you, Agent Simmons," says the app, and Skye thinks that she'll have to hack it and give it a new voice.

Simmons smiles at her. "You're welcome." She turns back to Coulson. "Agent May asked me to ask what you want to do with the two Centipede thugs?"

"They can go to the Fridge," Coulson says.

Skye has been typing busily and now the app asks, "Can I get up?"

Simmons gives a quick nod. "Yes, but no trips into the field until your voice returns. Drink plenty of fluids, and get lots of rest. If you feel unwell, let me know."

Skye nods, and as Simmons goes out, Coulson comes back to the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

She types rapidly for a few moments, then the app says, "Like someone tried to choke me to death. Are you okay?"

He nods. "A few bruises, nothing too serious."

Skye types again. "What about the cut on your head?"

He lifts a hand and touches two fingers to the line of sutures. "Pretty superficial. Head wounds always bleed horribly. Do you want to go to your bunk?"

She nods, and he takes the tablet from her, then helps her out of the bed, and she finds herself very glad that Simmons didn't insist on putting her in a hospital robe. Coulson picks up the tablet and she accepts it, then leans on the arm he offers her, letting him lead her back to her bunk.

"We'll be in the air for several hours, flying to the Fridge, so you'll have plenty of time to rest. I'll come back later and see how you are."

She nods, then uses the app to ask, "Is it a literal fridge?"

He chuckles softly. "No. It's just a SHIELD facility where we send people who're too dangerous to be out in the world."

He waits until she's settled on her bed, then says, "I'll see you later", and she nods again. Once he's gone, she moves her pillows behind her back, then leans back and proceeds to hack the voice app, because if she has to use someone else's voice to communicate, she doesn't see why she should sound like a demented robot.

The next day, when they're returning from their trip to the Fridge, Coulson comes to see her again; she's working in her bunk rather than in his office to spare him the sound of the voice app. He had said he didn't mind listening to it, but even the hacked version she's using now tends to grate on her nerves, and since she prefers not to listen to it herself, she sees no reason to make anyone else do so.

"Have you a few minutes to spare?" he asks, and she nods, wondering at the serious expression he wears.

He steps inside her bunk, sliding the door closed, which surprises her, then he gestures at the bed. "May I? She nods again, then uses the app to ask, "What's up AC?"

He settles himself with his back against the plane's hull, and as she watches him she considers his profile: he's not classically handsome, but she finds him very satisfying to look at. He wears his suits very well, but she can't help wondering what he'd look like in casual clothes. His body is compact, but strong, and she likes the fact that they're of a similar height.

He distracts her from these musings by resting his hand lightly on her knee as she sits cross-legged facing him.

"I promised to help you to find out whatever we could about your origins," he says. "And I wanted to let you know that I've done some preliminary digging around. I haven't found much yet, I'm afraid, but I wanted you to have the information straight away rather than making you wait until there's more to tell."

He squeezes her knee briefly when she nods at him. "I've put in a request for further information, but one thing I did find out was that it was a female SHIELD agent who dropped you off at St Agnes."

She types furiously on the tablet, and she senses he's happy to wait for her inevitable questions.

"Who was she? Why would a SHIELD agent drop me off at the orphanage? Was she my mother? Can we go and see her? I'd like to meet her, even if she's not my mother."

His fingers tighten on her knee and that's enough to warn her that he's going to give her some bad news next. 

"It's possible, but not very probable that the agent was your mother," he tells her, "but asking her is out of the question, I'm afraid, as she's dead."

Skye bows her head, pulling her knees together and wrapping her arms around them. Coulson puts his hand on her shoulder and rubs it to and fro, and it's that small gesture of comfort that undoes her. She begins to cry, and he says, "Hey, come here" in a soft voice, and she gladly crawls across the bed to lean against him as he wraps his arms around her.

He soothes her, one hand tangled in her hair at the back of her head, the other rubbing circles on her back until her tears subside and she leans away from him to try to find a tissue in her jeans pocket.

"Here," he says, and passes her his pocket handkerchief for the second time in two days.

"Thanks." She speaks without thinking, then realises that her voice is back, albeit hoarse and scratchy.

They talk for a little while longer, until Coulson tells her she should rest her voice, if not herself, and she lets him go back to the more important stuff he needs to be doing – not that he phrases it like that. He departs with a promise that he'll keep digging and "We will find something", the latter phrase making her feel a little better, because she's been on her own in this search for so long now.

A couple of days later – days which Skye has spent in finishing uploading her Centipede data to the SHIELD servers, and has discussed several lines of enquiry with Coulson – he gets a call from an Agent Weaver who, he tells Skye, is in charge of the SciTech Academy, where FitzSimmons trained. Someone, it appears, has created a device which uses a crystalline nucleation process Simmons designed and a delivery mechanism Fitz invented. Agent Weaver has therefore requested that the two scientists come and give a talk to the students – "the one about using their talents wisely", Coulson tells Skye. Agent Ward will be accompanying FitzSimmons so that he can assist Agent Weaver with her investigation.

"What do you want me to do?" Skye asks. She's back to working in his office and will admit (if only to herself) that she loves being there: she loves watching him at work, and she enjoys the way he'll bounce ideas off her and (more importantly to Skye) lets her bounce ideas off him.

"Normally I'd have sent you with them to give you a taste of a SHIELD Academy, but something popped first thing this morning."

There's a note in his voice she can't immediately identify, until she realises it's cautious optimism.

"What is it?"

"I recently managed to discover that before her death, Agent Avery was partnered with another newly-graduated agent – a Richard Lumley. Unfortunately, he disappeared twenty-three years ago – he went off the grid completely, and I had despaired of finding him again."

"But you have now?" she asks, hardly daring to believe it.

He nods. "He turned up in the background of a teen's selfie, taken in Mexico City. But he's unlikely to remain there. If he's as good an agent as I believe – and frankly, he must be one of the best to have stayed dark for so long – then he'll know he's been spotted, and he'll be making plans to move on. With that in mind, Agent May is going to drop Agents Ward and FitzSimmons off at the Academy, and then we'll head to Mexico City."

Skye nods, biting her lip. "What do you want me to do?"

"Initially, nothing," he says. "At this point we have no way of knowing what scared him off – but it must have been something very serious for him to abandon a promising career and simply disappear for nearly a quarter century. So May and I will find him, and bring him back to the Bus. I'll have a chat with him first, just to establish what the situation is, and then depending on how that goes, I'll introduce you to him."

She nods, then swipes the back of her hand over her eyes, before pulling out a tissue.

"You okay?" Coulson asks gently, coming around his desk to crouch beside her chair.

She nods, swallowing hard, and his hand comes to rest on her knee.

"I don't know what we're going to find out, Skye. And I'll be honest with you, I'm worried about what Lumley may tell us, because his behaviour tells me it's not going to be good news."

She shakes her head, then blows her nose. "Knowing something, no matter how bad, is better than knowing nothing, and always wondering," she says.

He gives her knee a brief pat, then gets to his feet. "I only hope you're still of that mind once we talk to him."

Coulson suggests that Skye remain in his office, even once Lumley's aboard the Bus, and explains that he'll talk to Lumley in the lounge, and that Skye can watch and listen to the conversation via a surveillance camera in the lounge.

It's a couple of hours after May brings them to Mexico City that Skye sees Coulson and May returning to the Bus with a man who looks about Coulson's age. He's casually dressed, but he seems nervous as he walks up the ramp beside Coulson. She switches the view from the hangar to the lounge, and pulls her feet up onto the chair seat, wrapping her arms around her knees as she settles in to listen. She hopes that Lumley will be able to answer some of her questions.

Coulson and Lumley sit facing each other across the coffee table in the lounge, while May stands nearby.

"Cyanide," Coulson is saying, and Skye realises she's missed part of the foregoing conversation. "What did you think we were gonna do to you?"

"What they did to Linda Avery," says Lumley, his tone bleak. "She wasn't the first one to die." He gives Coulson a pensive look, before continuing, "We were heading into the Hunan Province in China. Senior Agent called in an 084."

"An object of unknown origin," Coulson says, and Skye presumes that clarification is for her benefit. "We've dealt with those before."

"He said the entire village had died, trying to protect this one," Lumley tells him. "Avery and I were just fresh out of the Academy. There were five of us, running the back end until we lost communication with the first team. We went searching – found the senior agent under a bridge. He'd managed to escape with a gunshot wound to the neck, but he bled out. He was still holding on to the 084."

Lumley pauses, shaking his head – a little disbelievingly, Skye thinks as she watches him.

"Poor thing was covered in blood. We though she was dead too. But she was just asleep in the dead agent's arms."

Skye puts a hand to her mouth as she sees Coulson's frown of confusion at the other agent's words melt into comprehension.

"Wait," begins Coulson, leaning forward in his seat. "The baby? The girl was the 084?"

"She had powers or something," Lumley tells him, and Skye wants to shout at him, to tell him it's not true, but she continues to listen with all her might.

"We never witnessed it," Lumley says, and she feels a surge of relief at his words.

Coulson looks up at May, amazement written all over his face as Lumley resumes his story.

"The five of us helicoptered the kid off. Headed home. After we landed, we started getting crossed off."

"Executed?" asks Coulson quietly, and Skye shoves her fist against her mouth to stop herself from crying out in horror.

"Tortured. Heads bashed in," Lumley tells Coulson. "And when it came down to Avery and I, we realised the only way to keep our people and the kid from being hunted – "

"Was to erase her from existence," finishes Coulson.

Lumley nods. "Avery was smart. She used the lead agent's credentials to fake a Level 8 clearance. She set up a nearly invisible protocol – the foster system was ordered to move the child around every few months."

"But they still got to Avery?" Coulson asks. Skye can barely hear him, she's sobbing so hard now, and she wishes he was here in his office with her.

"She died protecting that secret," Lumley tells him.

"And you left town?" Coulson says, making it half a question, half a statement.

"Oh I left everything," Lumley tells him. "I mean, whoever killed that kid's family, and all those agents, was a force to be reckoned with."

"That girl – " begins May, but Lumley raises his hand, cutting her off, his eyes begging her to stay silent.

"Don't tell me a damned thing about her," he says emphatically. "I don't wanna know. You understand?"

May crosses her arms over her chest as Lumley says, "Just tell me, she okay?"

"She's safe," Coulson tells him, and Skye can't help thinking he hasn't precisely answered Lumley's question.

"Then maybe it was all worth it," Lumley says. "You taking me in?"

"Yeah," answers May, starting to move away, but Coulson immediately says, "No", and Skye sees the other agent looking at him in surprise.

"I'm not sure SHIELD is the safest place for you, right now." He gets to his feet. "We'll get in the air, and drop you somewhere along the route."

"Thank you," Lumley says, looking up at Coulson with obvious relief.

Coulson and May move away from the agent, and Skye is reaching out to shut off the camera when Lumley says, "Bit of advice. Stop digging, and stay the hell away from that girl, 'cos wherever she goes, death follows."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson hurries to his office as soon as May heads to the cockpit to get them in the air. He expects Skye to be devastated by what she's overheard, and he's bitterly regretting letting her listen in to his conversation with Lumley, although he hadn't expected the other agent's account to be quite so brutal.

As he's anticipated, Skye is huddled up in the big leather chair, sobbing as if her heart is breaking – which, he reflects, it probably is. He crouches beside the chair, and touches her arm, and she jerks upright, a look of terror in her eyes.

"Don't!" she cries. "You should stay away from me. I don't – " 

"Skye," he says in a quiet, firm voice, cutting through her fear and panic. "I'm not afraid of you." He reaches for her.

"No," she says, a little wildly, pushing herself up out of the chair and trying to shove him aside. 

He catches hold of her forearms in a light clasp, then draws her slowly to him. "I'm not afraid of you," he tells her, more loudly.

She looks at him disbelievingly, then seems to collapse all at once, and he catches her, then scoops her up and carries her next door to his room. He lowers her onto his bed, then tugs off her boots, before slipping off his own shoes. He encourages her to lie on the bed, then climbs up beside her, spooning her so that her back's against his chest, and his arms are wrapped around her torso.

"It's going to be okay," he says softly into her hair.

"How can you say that?" she asks, but her tone is defeated rather than terrified.

"For a start, you saved Mike Peterson's life just a few days ago," he reminds her. "If you hadn't been there to calm him down, I don't doubt we'd have lost him. And when we went to the Centipede lab the other day, you were the one who came closest to dying, not someone else."

He presses a kiss to her temple. "I think Lumley was spooked," he tells her. "It must have been frightening for him, thinking that whoever had killed Avery and the others had caught up with him after all this time. In fact, I know Agent May and I frightened him because he was prepared to take a cyanide capsule just to avoid coming with us – and that's a horrible way to die."

"I haven't got any powers," she says in a quiet voice.

"Possibly, possibly not. Situations involving 084s are rarely clear cut, and I've never heard of an 084 being a person before – which isn't to say you're not one, but it needs investigating."

"Can we?" she asks, and twists around in his arms so that she can see his face.

"Well we could start by asking Simmons to run some tests on you: DNA and blood analysis, at least. She could also test your speed, strength, and stamina. If all of those are within normal parameters for humans, then I'd say there's a case to be argued for you not being an 084."

"Would we have to tell Simmons why she's running the tests?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"I don't want her or Fitz, or Ward, to treat me any differently," she tells him, and he can understand that very well. "It's quite enough that you and May know."

"May won't tell anyone," he says reassuringly. "She's very good at being discreet. And I promise you that I won't discuss it with anyone else without your consent and knowledge."

"Thank you." She snuggles against him, then says, "Thank you for finding Agent Lumley for me."

He frowns at her, rather disbelievingly he's sure, because she asks, "What?"

"Skye, why are you _thanking_ me? You should be cursing me for putting you through that. I've just destroyed your world."

"AC, do I look like someone who's had her world destroyed?"

He looks at her carefully, and he has to concede that she doesn't. "Aren't you feeling like that, then?" he asks doubtfully, wondering if he's being dense.

She shakes her head slightly. "I'm upset, of course," she tells him, "because what happened to those agents, and the village as well, was horrible. But don't you get it, AC? You've given me an immense gift today, you and Agent Lumley."

"No, I don't get it," he admits, wondering if grief has sent her mad – but she sounds very calm, and her eyes show no hint of madness. Her look is intent and focused.

"Agent Lumley told you that Agent Avery used fake SHIELD credentials to order the foster system to move me around every few months for my safety. That means that there wasn't anything wrong with me when I was a kid – I never did anything bad, like the nuns kept telling me – it wasn't _my_ fault. It was just SHIELD protecting me. All that time that I wanted a family, but I had one – a secret one, yeah, but they were there all the time – and that knowledge is the greatest gift I've ever had, knowing that I wasn't to blame for being sent back to St Agnes each time." 

She tightens her arms around him, then leans forward and kisses him on the mouth.

"Skye," he moans against her lips, startled at how immediately he gets aroused.

"AC," she whispers, then draws her tongue along the seam of his lips. 

He gasps, and she instantly takes advantage, slipping her tongue inside his mouth, and he groans, realising that he's already hard.

She shifts her body against his, and he moans again, feeling that he might come at any second, like a randy teen who's never been with a girl before.

He pulls back, ignoring the way his cock's throbbing painfully. "There isn't time for this right now," he tells her.

"Can we – that is – " She breaks off as if she's uncertain that she has the right to ask him for anything.

"Tonight," he promises. "We'll do this tonight. Now, though, I should go and say farewell to Agent Lumley and see him safely on his way." He kisses her quick and hard, then rolls away from her, although it's the last thing he wants to do. He straightens his clothing, then briefly runs a hand over his hair, before making himself walk away, because he knows that if he lingers, he won't be able to restrain himself.

When he returns from seeing Lumley on his way, Skye's back in his office, curled up in her usual chair, working diligently, and the only sign she gives that anything between them has changed is the soft smile she directs at him as he settles behind his desk.

"I didn't ask before you left – do you want our relationship to be a secret?"

"Not a secret, exactly," he tells her ."You're not a subordinate of mine, so the no-fraternisation rule doesn't really apply. But I'd prefer to keep it discreet, if you don't mind?"

She shakes her head. "I don't mind everyone else not knowing my business."

He nods, then settles down to work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Coulson and Skye take their relationship a step further the Obelisk comes into play.

In the hours that follow Agent Lumley's revelations Coulson almost forgets that he and Skye have taken a first step towards deepening their relationship – the discovery that the well-known philanthropist, Ian Quinn, is engaged in less-than-honourable dealings with SHIELD Academy students, as the events involving Donnie Gill and Seth Dormer show, worries him deeply, and he immediately assigns Skye the task of digging much deeper into Quinn Worldwide in order to learn as much as possible about this man.

She's still hard at work on this task when he notices how late it's grown, and he glances over at Skye to see her reaching for her coffee mug. She grimaces, and he guesses from the way she glares at the mug that it's actually empty; time for them to get some rest, he thinks.

He crosses over to her chair, then puts a hand on her shoulder, and she blinks up at him as if she'd got so lost in her work she'd forgotten he was even in the office with her.

"Let's call it a night," he suggests.

"Yeah." She shuts her laptop, then slides her feet down to the floor, and Coulson offers her his hand. She takes it with a shy smile, allowing him to draw her body closer to his.

"I want to be with you tonight," he tells her in a low voice, then lowers his mouth to hers to kiss her deep and slow. She moans, pressing her body more firmly against his, and he feels his desire growing rapidly deeper until he has to pull his mouth from hers.

He waits a moment to catch his breath, then places his hand at the small of her back and guides her from his office to his room. He's not too surprised when she's the one who initiates the removal of their clothes – he suspects she's capable of being quite bold with a lover, when she chooses. She slides one hand up to the knot of his tie, while her other hand holds the back of his head as she kisses him. He feels his tie slip from around his neck, then she begins unbuttoning his shirt at a maddeningly slow pace.

"If you insist on going at such a torturously slow pace, I'm going to embarrass us both," he tells her, and she chuckles, an impossibly sexy sound that goes straight to his cock.

"Very well, AC, I'll have mercy on you."

"Thank you." He kisses her swiftly, then tugs her shirt up and over her head without bothering with the buttons, eliciting a giggle, before he unfastens her jeans and begins to slide them down her legs.

Once she's down to her underwear, she strips off his shirt, then unfastens and removes his pants, leaving him in his t-shirt and boxers. Her hands go to the hem of his t-shirt, but he catches hold of them.

"Do you mind if I leave it on for now?" he asks, hoping she doesn't think he's being pathetic.

"If that's what you want," she says, and he swallows hard, touched by the look of understanding in her brown eyes.

"Thank you."

She nods, then grabs his right hand and guides it behind her, and he grabs the fastener of her bra and flicks it open, then tugs the bra free before bringing both hands up to cup her breasts. She groans softly as he thumbs her nipples to stiffness, and he begins kissing her again until she's practically plastering her body over his.

"No fair," she complains, then insinuates her hand inside his boxers to stroke his cock.

"Definitely unfair," he gasps, and she utters that sexy chuckle again.

He abruptly picks her up, then crosses over to his bed and sets her down, pushing her shoulder lightly until she sprawls backwards across the bed, and he tugs her panties off.

"I want to taste you, later," he says, "but I want to be inside you first."

"Yes," she agrees with a sigh, then shifts across the bed, settling herself comfortably and watching as he finally tugs his boxers off, then climbs up onto the bed. He kneels over her, his knees alongside her thighs, then reaches out to drag open the drawer of his nightstand and retrieves a condom.

"May I?" Skye asks, and he smirks, before passing over the little foil packet.

He can't help a quiet groan escaping when she clasps his rigid shaft in one hand, then rolls the condom down his length with the other. She smirks up at him, clearly pleased.

He shakes his head slightly, then slips two fingers inside her to check that she's ready, and he feels gratified when he discovers just how wet she is already.

"Come on, AC," she says urgently. 

He tuts at her, and she reaches for his arms, so he relents – after all, he's only torturing himself as well if he makes her wait any longer.

He lowers his body over hers, and she lifts her head to kiss him, open-mouthed and desperate, then utters a breathy moan when he begins to slide inside her.

"Feels so good," she says, and he can't disagree: she feels hot, and wet, and wonderfully tight too – he just hopes he has enough self-control not to come too soon.

"I may not last long," he warns her. "I haven't done this since before the Battle of New York."

"That," says Skye with quiet emphasis, "is a tragedy." He can't help chuckling at her words as she wraps her arms and legs more tightly around him. "I'm glad you chose to end your drought with me."

He smiles at her. "Me too."

He leans down to kiss her, then begins to thrust, hoping desperately that he can get her off before his own orgasm overtakes him.

Skye is eager, and responsive, and more vocal than he'd anticipated, but the sounds she makes are wonderfully satisfying, and when she shatters around him, he only has to thrust twice more before he is pushed over the edge himself.

"AC – " she begins, and he stops her with a quick kiss.

"Phil," he says. "When we're in private, you can call me Phil."

She grins, eyes wide with delight. "Phil. I'm so glad you were the one who came to interview me."

He smirks. "Me too." He kisses her forehead, then rolls off her, quickly disposing of the condom, then he pulls the bedcovers up over them. She presses herself against his side, resting her head on his chest, right over his scarred heart, and he sighs softly in pleasure.

"Goodnight, Phil."

"Goodnight, Skye."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Overnight there's been a raid on a SHIELD storage facility – which in itself is bad news, but what's worse is that there's quite a few indications it was an inside job, because the only thing that's been taken is an 084.

"It's the original one," Coulson tells Skye as they sit in his office the morning after Agent Lumley's visit.

"What is it?" she asks.

He shrugs. "It's been called the Obelisk, but that's probably not its original name. Howard Stark never managed to figure out what it does – except kill people if it's handled without gloves – it sends an electrical charge into the body and incinerates from the hands up."

She shudders. "That's a weird kind of power, isn't it? Not obviously useful, at any rate," she observes.

He smiles at her and she feels a flutter of desire in her belly, which she does her best to suppress. The night before had been amazing: she's never had such good first-time sex with a guy before, and she can't help wondering if it's anything to do with them being soulmates. All she knows is that they made love, then slept for a couple of hours before Coulson woke her up wanting more – and in the end, she reckoned they hadn't managed more than four or five hours sleep. Although if you looked at Coulson this morning, you wouldn't know it – he looks his usual smooth, sexy self, and she realises she's been staring when his smile morphs into a really smug smirk.

"Stop it," she says sternly, earning a chuckle of amusement from him. "If you go around smirking like that at me, everyone's gonna know exactly what we did last night."

"I think Miss Pot should remember that she was the one who started this by staring at Mr Kettle like she wanted to throw him down on his desk and – "

"Oh my god, stop!" she cries urgently. "Please do not put images like that in my head or I really won't be able to concentrate on anything."

He smirks again as he gets to his feet, then comes around the desk to stand beside her as she resumes staring at the big wall monitor. 

"Would you like that, Skye?" he asks in a low seductive voice.

"If you don't stop that right this second, I'll show you exactly how much I like it," she tells him, embarrassed that he's so easily guessed her fantasy.

Fortunately for her sanity, May's voice comes over the comm to tell them "Wheels down in twenty", and she breathes a sigh of relief.

"Later," he tells her, brushing a finger down her arm; it's a light touch, ghostly even, but she feels as if her entire arm is on fire, and heat pools between her thighs.

"We'd better get to the command centre so I can brief the rest of the team," he tells her, and she nods. Coulson had better keep his hands to himself, she thinks, or she'll do something really inappropriate with him.

Once they're gathered around the holo-table in the command centre, Skye makes herself stand at least six inches away from him – it's the only way she can maintain even an illusion of self-control. It frightens her a little, how intensely she desires him – it's unusual for her as she's usually the one to hold herself back at least a little.

"This 084 is the first one ever captured by SHIELD, although of course, the organisation wasn't SHIELD in those days, it was the SSR."

"SSR stands for – " begins Fitz, looking at Skye.

"Strategic Scientific Reserve, yeah, I know," she tells him, smiling slightly as an apology for cutting him off.

"You've heard of it?" he says, sounding surprised.

She refrains from rolling her eyes at him – she likes him and Simmons a lot, but Fitz does have a tendency to treat her as if she's dumb, just because she doesn't have half a dozen PhDs to her name.

She recites to him the relevant facts about the SSR, and its place as SHIELD's forerunner, and she senses Coulson's barely restrained amusement – but she knows he's not laughing at her, which makes her feel a bit better. Simmons is smiling at her – well, beaming fondly would not be an inaccurate description. Agent May's wearing her best blank look, but Skye's not entirely sure she's not amused too. Agent Ward, however, looks a little irritated by her recital, and it's his reaction which puzzles her – she knows he's not keen on her – strongly dislikes her is probably a more accurate description of his feelings, but she's not entirely convinced it's only because she's a Rising Tide member.

"Now that we've established that," Coulson says, pulling Skye's attention back from puzzling over Ward to the mission at hand, "FitzSimmons, you will go and investigate the scene of the crime – you may find something that the security team overlooked. Ward will go with you as back-up, just in case the thieves come back for more. May will go and talk to the guards who were on duty last night as it's possible they know more than they realise."

"What about me?" asks Skye.

"I want you to go through the security camera footage from last night. I'm sure that whoever took this object was a professional, but you never know – you might spot something that will give us a clue. I want every angle covered thoroughly – we need to find whoever took the Obelisk and bring it back as it's much too dangerous to have out there in the world."

"Sir, wouldn't it be better if I went with Agent May to interrogate the guards?" asks Ward.

"No, Agent Ward, it would not. Agent May is quite capable of handling the questioning of the guards. There's no need to interrogate them until we're sure they're a part of this. Also, I do not wish to send Agents Fitz and Simmons into the field without any back-up since they're not cleared for combat. I don't think it's very likely the thieves will come back, but after what happened at the Centipede lab in LA, I'm not taking any risks." He holds Ward's gaze until the younger man looks away, then glances around the holo-table. "Let's get to work."

The others file out, FitzSimmons discussing what equipment they'll need, and Ward looking as if he'd very much like to argue with his orders but doesn't quite dare to oppose Coulson. May follows them silently.

Skye is already downloading the security camera footage from around the base as they go out, but she's aware of Coulson coming to stand right beside her.

"I get the impression Agent Ward's no fonder of you than he is of me," she observes. "What's his problem?"

"Ward's a Specialist," Coulson answers. "They are notoriously bad team players, and generally have poor people skills – which is what makes them so good at their jobs. Ward is one of the best Specialists we've had since Agent Romanov – which means his people skills are correspondingly very bad."

"I suppose he despises me because I'm a hacktivist."

"Probably," Coulson murmurs, and Skye looks up to see him looking at her very intently, and she has to swallow down a surge of desire at the look in his eyes.

"Phil," she whispers.

"Skye." Her name on his lips is like a sigh of pleasure, and she already has her hands on his upper arms, reaching up to kiss him, when the holo-table pings, starling them both.

"What's that?" Coulson asks.

Skye's already turning her attention towards it, and she smiles at him as she tells him, "I set up a search on the security camera footage to look for any of Centipede's associates – those I saw and photographed back at the lab in LA – and we've got a hit. Someone from the LA lab was here at the base last night.

He throws her an admiring look and she can't help grinning just a little, basking in his admiration.

"Which one of them is it?" he asks when two figures appear in the footage.

"The woman in the flower dress. She visited the Centipede lab three times in the six weeks that I was watching the place. The doctor who died when the lab blew, Debbie, seemed to defer to her."

"Name?"

"Debbie called her Raina," Skye says. "No last name though. She always wore a dress with flowers on it."

"Do we know anything about her?"

She shakes her head. "Not so far. Well no more than I gave SHIELD – she's got some sort of science background, judging by the conversations she had with Debbie."

"Who's that with her?" asks Coulson, peering at the second figure.

"No idea. Whoever it is keeps their face hidden throughout. I'm not even one hundred percent sure it's a man, though the probability is high that it is."

"I'm betting whoever he is, he works for SHIELD. The guards reported that they entered cleanly, so whoever it was had the right access codes." He turns and looks at Skye. "Could you hack your way in?"

"Not that fast," she says gesturing at the footage. "They literally walked in, picked up the 084, and walked back out in less than five minutes. So Raina's companion is either SHIELD, or knows someone who is, who gave them the door code. Sorry."

"Why are you apologising?" he asks, sounding surprised.

"Well, in your shoes, if I found out someone had betrayed the Rising Tide, I'd be pretty pissed off."

He nods, and they watch the rest of the footage, but there's little more of Raina and her companion, and not once does that companion show his – or her – face.

"He obviously knows what he's doing," Skye observes, "to never get caught looking at a camera."

"Yeah. Another point in favour of the inside job theory," Coulson says heavily. 

"I wish it wasn't the case," she tells him.

He gives a little shrug. "I'd better notify Director Fury, and send the footage to HQ – it's possible they might find something to help us to identify the traitor. Perhaps the way he walks is idiosyncratic. Director Fury is not going to be a happy man."

Skye nods. "I'll see if I can find any further images of Raina. With SHIELD's servers to power the search, I can hook up to traffic cameras, ATMs, private security cameras, public transport cameras – just about any camera anywhere in the country. And SHIELD's facial recognition software's excellent, so there's a strong chance of spotting her somewhere or other."

"Thank you." He brushes his hand down her arm, and she immediately moves into his personal space to give him a soft, brief kiss.

"We'll find her," she promises.

"I think if anyone can, you can," he tells her, and she ducks her head, both flattered and embarrassed by his assertion. He sounds too sincere for her to think he's just saying it for something to say: Coulson's not that sort of man.

"I'll do my best," she tells him, and he nods.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Everyone's back aboard the Bus within the hour, and they gather back around the holo-table to share their findings. May and FitzSimmons make their reports, which don't amount to very much, although Coulson hadn't realistically expected them to. As he and Skye had already surmised, Raina's companion knows exactly what he's doing, so there's no sign of the pair arriving at the base, nor did any of the security team see anything of the pair entering or leaving the building in which the 084 was housed.

Skye shares what she's found, and May praises her quietly, which pleases Coulson, He wants the others to value Skye as much as he does – and not just because they've now become lovers. He considers Skye has great potential as a SHIELD agent, and it's his hope to persuade her to join, and to talk May into becoming her SO.

"Is there any way to find out more about this Raina character?" May asks.

"We could always try asking Mike Peterson," Skye says, and when everyone except Coulson looks blank at the name, she glances at him, and on his nod, explains her two meetings with the man.

"Where is he now?" May asks Coulson.

"At a SHIELD facility," Coulson says. "He's been accepted for training as an agent, and is being monitored by a team of our scientists at the same time."

"Do the scientists know – " begins Fitz.

"Why he hasn't gone – " Simmons gestures vaguely with her hands.

"Boom?" finishes Fitz.

"I expect they do," Coulson says dryly, "but I haven't asked them. Still, Skye's right, he's as good a source as anyone else at this point."

Before they can discuss the idea further, however, the holo-table pings again, and Skye looks up at Coulson with a small smile of triumph. 

"I've got a hit on Raina. She's at a small airfield in North Carolina."

"Departing or arriving?" ask Coulson immediately.

"She's just arrived at the airfield in a local cab." She's typing rapidly as she speaks, and then tells everyone, "It's an airfield that specialises in charter flights."

"We're not likely to be able to get there in time to catch her," Coulson observes, glancing at May, who shakes her head. "So I'll contact the Hub and ask them to dispatch a local SHIELD team to pick her up." He looks at Skye. "Keep looking, though – if she leaves before the local agents can arrive, we need to know where she's going."

"On it," Skye assures him immediately.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

The North Carolina agents arrive too late to capture Raina, who had left ten minutes earlier in a plane bound for Paris. She hadn't chosen to fly under an alias, Skye assures Coulson, which means that they can at least follow her easily, even if they can't manage to intercept her.

"Do you reckon Paris is her final destination, or just a stop-over?" Skye asks. FitzSimmons have gone back to their lab, May's on stick, and Ward's down in the hanger, beating up on a punching bag, leaving Coulson and Skye in the command centre where she's using the holo-table, and he's watching her, enjoying the sight of her working.

"Hard to know at this stage," he observes, "but I'd guess it's not her final destination."

"Shame. I wouldn't have minded a trip to Paris."

"You ever been to Europe before?" 

She shakes her head. "Never could afford it. And none of my foster families were ever big on travelling, and certainly not to Europe."

He slides his hand down her back, and feels her shiver at his touch, which immediately makes him want her. He's slightly embarrassed by just how much he desires Skye. He never lusted after Audrey like this – but Skye seems to fill his thoughts whatever he's doing.

She turns to him, and presses her body against his, and he can't seem to stop himself from pressing against her in return, backing her into the holo-table, then leaning down to kiss her hard. She moans softly into his mouth and he kisses along her jawline to a spot under her ear. He nips at her earlobe, then his mouth travels down her neck and around into the hollow of her throat.

"Phil." She sighs his name and he wonders if she's already close.

"Are you wet for me, Skye?" he asks in a low voice, nuzzling the side of her neck.

"Yeah." She rubs herself against him shamelessly, and he groans, his hands sliding from her hips to cup her ass.

"We can't do this here," he tells her, much as he wants to. The image of lifting her onto the holo-table and sliding inside her is very powerful, but he knows it's far too risky.

"My room or yours?" she asks.

"Mine. Greater privacy."

"Yeah." She pulls herself away from him, then gives him a positively sultry look, before leading the way to his office. 

"In here?" he asks, slightly surprised. He'd thought they were heading for his bedroom.

She smirks. "Is that okay? Or is sex in the office too demeaning?"

"Sex with you is never going to be demeaning, no matter where we do it," he says firmly, and her smirk broadens into an outright grin.

"Since it's not safe for you to fuck me on the holo-table, let's do it on your desk," she suggests.

" _Skye._ " He fears he's going to lose control completely if she goes on saying things like that.

"Oh, you thought about that too?" she asks, sounding delighted to know it had also been in his mind.

"Yeah." He locks his door, then returns to her as she leans back against his desk. "I'd better clear some space," he tells her, proceeding to grab things and move them. "Don't want anything sticking in you."

"Except you," she counters, and he chokes, by turns appalled, amused, and aroused.

"I can't believe you said that!"

She chuckles at him. "I couldn't resist. You left yourself wide open there, Phil."

"I'm pretty sure you're a bad influence on me."

She shakes her head. "No, I'm a really good influence on you – you're a lot less like a company man now than when we met."

He's finished clearing his desk, and she kisses him as he unfastens her jeans and tugs them down, along with her panties. She steps out of them, as casual as you please, then her hands are on his belt, and moments later his pants and boxers slide down his legs.

She grabs his cock, not too roughly, for which he's grateful, and tugs him closer. "Fuck me, Phil."

He groans, then clasps her hip with his left hand while guiding his cock inside her.

"Oh yeah." Her quiet moan of appreciation as he slides into her nearly undoes him, but he manages to hold on, and it's his turn to moan when she clenches around him as his forward thrust is completed.

"Better make this quick," she suggests, "or who knows who'll come looking for one or other of us."

He grunts agreement, then begins to move, his hips snapping back and forward. Skye brings her hand down between their bodies and begins rubbing her clit as he thrusts fast and hard, and her breath is hot against his ear as she starts panting harshly. They're both so wound up, even without much foreplay, that it's not long before her muscles are tightening around his cock and she's burying her face in the crook of his neck to muffle the sounds of her orgasm hitting her. He manages a few more thrusts of his own, then he too loses control, and empties himself into her.

"Okay?" he asks once he's caught his breath again.

"Wonderful," she says, her tone sincere.

"Good." He kisses her quickly, then withdraws, passing her some tissues from the box he'd deliberately left on the corner of his desk when he cleared it of everything else. They clean themselves up swiftly, then pull their clothes back on.

"I'm gonna go and see where Raina's at," she tells him, and plants a swift kiss on his cheek, before letting herself out of his office. 

He lets her go, and concentrates, instead, on replacing everything on his desk again. He's just finished and is wondering if he has any air freshener in his desk drawers when Ward comes in without ceremony, then stares at Coulson very hard. 

"Yes Agent Ward?" Coulson stares coolly at the younger man, refusing to let himself be intimidated in any way.

"I just came to ask, sir, if you think it's wise for all of us to pursue this Raina woman?"

"What are you suggesting, Agent?" Coulson's fairly sure he knows what Ward wants, but he's going to make the younger agent spell it out.

"Let me go back to the base and ask around some more. Someone must remember something – they just need a little encouragement to bring it to mind."

"No." Coulson speaks firmly. "Agent May was completely satisfied that no one on the base itself was in any way involved with the theft, and I trust her judgement one hundred percent."

Ward shakes his head slightly, and Coulson frowns at him. "Agent May was very good, back in the days when she was the Cavalry, but I think years of paperwork have made her lose her edge."

"Care to take that argument down to the hangar?" asks a voice behind Ward, startling the younger man.

May is standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, looking like she'd happily take Ward apart with one hand behind her back.

"I – uh – No – I didn't mean – " Ward splutters and Coulson bites back a smirk at seeing him so discomfited. 

"That will be all, Agent Ward," Coulson tells him.

"Sir." Ward is forced to wait in the doorway for May to move, which she does very slowly, her eyes locked with Ward's the whole time. Once he's gone she moves further into Coulson's office, and he raises an eyebrow at her.

"We're going to need to refuel when we get to Paris," she tells him. "Do you think this Raina's likely to stay there?"

He shakes his head. "I suspect she's heading somewhere else entirely, probably Asia or the Arab states."

"Then we definitely need to refuel – and it wouldn't hurt to pick up some basic supplies while we're there."

"Duly noted." He waits, sure that May has come for more than a housekeeping update.

"Be careful with the girl, Phil," she says.

"Excuse me?" Coulson's tone is almost as cool as it had been with Ward, but May doesn't flinch.

"You know Skye thinks she's your soulmate?"

"I do," he tells her, "though I'm surprised that you do."

"She brought it up, her first morning on the Bus. I saw her red string mark – matches yours exactly. But that doesn't mean you have to act on it."

He stares at her for several seconds, then says, "Why do you think I shouldn't?" He's known May a long time, after all – she's the closest thing he's got to a best friend.

"She's a lot younger than you for a start."

He scoffs. "Hardly relevant, May," he says. "She's a grown woman and quite capable of making her own decisions."

She narrows her eyes at him. "You've already slept with her," she says, sounding defeated.

"What if I have?" he asks defiantly, feeling the tips of his ears beginning to burn.

May sighs. "Oh Phil. Didn't you listen to a word Agent Lumley said?"

"Every word," he tells her crisply.

"She's dangerous, Phil. An 084 with unknown powers, unknown origins, even. Simply having her aboard the Bus could be endangering us all, and – "

"Enough." Coulson raises his hand and cuts her off. "I've known you a very long time, May, and we've been beside each other through some bad times, so I shall forgive you speaking that way about Skye. But I don't want to hear any more on the matter. Whether or not she's my soulmate, Skye is a brilliant, passionate, kind-hearted, and compassionate young woman – she's a valuable asset to our team. And I care about her."

May shakes her head slightly, giving him an exasperated look. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you," she observes. She doesn't wait to be dismissed, simply turns on her heel and stalks out, and Coulson sits back in his chair, then lets out a long sigh.

"Trouble, AC?"

Skye's quiet question from the doorway draws him back out of his thoughts. 

"Differences of opinion with my senior agents," he tells her, and beckons her in. "What's up?" She's carrying a tablet so he guesses she's got something she wants to tell or show him, and he's glad of the distraction.

"Just picked up a report to SHIELD from an agent in Hong Kong – seems a young man with pyrokinetic talents has been abducted. The agent found a small piece of fire-resistant clothing in the apartment, and concluded that whoever took the man, one Chan Ho Yin, knew that he was on your Index."

"Who's Mr Chan's handler?" he asks.

"A Mr Quan," Skye says after a quick look at the tablet.

"Does Agent Quan have any theories about who took Mr Chan?"

She shakes her head. "Says it's a mystery – I kinda get the impression Agent Quan doesn't like our Mr Chan – he doesn't say so outright, but I can read between the lines."

Coulson gets to his feet, fastening the top button on his jacket. "All right, let's set up a conference call with Agent Quan and see what he has to say outright." He taps the phone on his desk and calls everyone to the command centre for a conference call.

"You have a theory about why Mr Chan's been taken, don't you?" he asks as they make their way to the command centre.

She gives him a surprised look. "How'd you know?"

He smirks. "I'm a profiler, Skye. I am very good at reading people. So, theory?"

"Centipede agents have taken Mr Chan – after all, he must be resistant to fire if he can manipulate it at will – and I imagine whoever's in charge of the Centipede group would dearly love to find a way to stop their super-soldiers from going boom. I mean, I don't know how the science – well, genetics, would work, although I'm betting Simmons does – but if there was some way to use Mr Chan's genes, or whatever, to keep the Centipede guys from exploding, you've got to bet that Centipede would be all over that."

"It makes sense," he agrees, and looks around as the rest of his team files in. Ward is looking particularly uncomfortable, he notes, while May looks as inscrutable as ever. 

Briefly he explains the message Skye's reported, then taps on the holo-table to connect the call to Agent Quan. May greets him, and introduces the team, then Coulson asks what news he has.

Quan shrugs eloquently. "So far we have been unable to find any trace of Mr Chan or the people who took him. It's as if he vanished into thin air, like one of his magic tricks."

"Agent Quan, have you or any of your people seen this woman in the city?" Skye asks, tapping on the tablet she still carries, and sending a copy of a photo of Raina to the agent.

"Not that I recall, Miss Skye."

One of the other agents says something to Quan in the background, out of earshot of the microphone, and Quan repeats it: "Agent Han says he saw a woman very like this one in the area where Mr Chan likes to perform his magic tricks."

"When was this?" asks Skye, before Coulson can.

"Two weeks ago, apparently."

"She was checking him out, checking he was her man," Skye says. "Was Mr Chan using his gift that day?"

Agent Quan nodded. "Despite my many admonishments, Mr Chan too often used his gift as a part of his magic act." He scowls. "The young man wanted to be as famous as Houdini, whom he idolised, and he resented my attempts to restrain him from using his gifts."

Coulson tells Agent Quan that they'll be in Hong Kong as soon as they can and arranges a rendezvous with him, then disconnects the call. "All right, people. May, Ward, you'd better make sure your equipment's in order as it's likely we'll run into people who won't appreciate our interference. FitzSimmons, I need you to look at ways in which the Centipede scientists might be planning on using Mr Chan to stabilise the serum they give to their super-soldiers." 

He turns to Skye, and smirks when he sees she's already pulling in security camera footage from around the area of Mr Chan's apartment. 

"Skye, keep doing what you're doing. And also, keep an eye on Raina, please."

She nods, and points at one of the windows on the holo-table. "Already got that covered, AC," she says, not even looking up from her work. He peers at the window and sees that it's a tracking program, following the progress of the private charter flight which Raina had boarded to Paris.

"You know, you're wasted on the Rising Tide," he says.

She looks up at that, eyes wide. "What do you mean?" She sounds a little defensive, he thinks, and realises he should have phrased that differently.

"I mean that for a hacker, you've already got the makings of a really good agent – Level 3, at least."

Her eyes go even wider at his words, and she actually takes a small step back from the holo-table. "You're serious," she breathes, staring at him intently.

"Very," he assures her. "I would dearly love to have you in SHIELD – you've already got a great natural talent at several aspects of the job: you're good at reading people; you are quick-witted and good at thinking outside the box; you're patient, and compassionate. With training, you could even give Maria Hill a run for her money – at the very least."

She ducks her head, but not before he sees a sheen of moisture in her eyes, and he steps into her personal space, sliding his arms around her.

"Thanks, AC." She breathes the words against his collar. "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time."

He kisses her temple, then gently lifts her chin to place a close-mouthed kiss on her lips. "Will you think about it?" he asks softly. "No need to decide right away."

"Yeah, I'll think about it."

"Good."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and Skye meet Raina and Skye's father for the first time. The Obelisk shows some of its powers.

They arrive in Hong Kong a few hours later, and head straight to the rendezvous with Agent Quan at the local SHIELD HQ. Skye is given a desk where she settles down to pull up yet more security and traffic camera footage; Raina isn't far behind them, only an hour or so, Skye judges, and since Hong Kong is an island and only has one civilian airfield, she's confident she'll be able to spot the other woman as soon as she arrives.

Coulson, May, and Ward are in discussion with Agent Quan and his colleagues, trying to figure out where Centipede's lab may be, but in the meantime Skye's scouring the camera footage from the night before to see if she can spot Mr Chan being manhandled into a building somewhere. It's a long shot, she knows, but at least it gives her something useful to do. FitzSimmons are back aboard the Bus, which is parked out of sight at the airfield, doing something spectacularly scientific and geeky – they're not cleared for combat, so Coulson wouldn't bring them along. He's only brought Skye because she's promised to stay either at HQ, or in a SHIELD vehicle – a promise she fully intends to keep because she's definitely not cleared for combat, and has no wish to either risk herself or distract Coulson by being a risk.

An hour after their arrival in Hong Kong, Raina's plane touches down and Skye calls Coulson over. He does something on the tablet, and the images from the airfield are projected onto a large flat screen monitor on the office wall, and they watch impatiently until Raina disembarks from the plane, then walks into the terminal.

Twenty minutes later she appears outside the airport terminal and climbs into a waiting car, not a cab, and Skye immediately snags a traffic camera to grab the car's license plate.

Agent Quan is on the phone immediately, trying to find out who is the car's registered owner. Skye, meanwhile, is following the car's progress across the city until it reaches an anonymous building somewhere in the centre.

"That must be Centipede's HQ," Coulson says. "Can you – "

"Already on it, AC," she tells him, knowing he'll want to know who owns the building. "Well, what do you know," she says after a few minutes. "It's registered to Cybertek, which is a subsidiary of Quinn Worldwide."

"So Ian Quinn's in it up to his neck," Coulson says quietly.

"Well, we did have our suspicions," she points out.

"Yeah."

After that there's a bustle of activity as Coulson and Quan organise a raid on the Cybertek building. They decide to take three vehicles: Agents Ward and May travel with Agent Quan and his second-in-command; a second vehicle's filled with Quan's people; and Coulson and Skye ride in the third, Skye poring over the tablet as she analyses blueprints of the building.

"If they work out we're coming, they'll lock down the building," Coulson observes.

"Any reason they should suspect we're coming?" she asks.

He gives a shrug, and concentrates on the road.

"Well, there's a good chance that I can unlock the building if they do lock it down," she tells him. "Sometimes being a hacker is useful."

He chuckles. "Skye, you're always more than merely useful."

She feels heat in her cheeks, and ducks her head, concentrating on the tablet. Coulson grasps her leg lightly, squeezing briefly, before returning his hand to the wheel as he steers them around the final corner into a street around the corner from the Cybertek building.

"Here," he says, passing her an earbug. "We can stay in touch while I'm inside and you're out here."

She takes it, a little surprised, but also rather touched. "Thanks. Uh, how – "

"It just slips into your ear like an ordinary headphone earpiece," he tells her, and shows her with his own.

"Cool." She slips it in, then smiles at him, and he leans over to press a quick kiss to her forehead before climbing out of the SUV. He leans back in to speak to her before he walks away. 

"Everyone will be able to hear whatever you say," he tells her, and she nods.

"Gotcha."

He strides over to join Agent Quan and the others, and Skye hears the two men discussing how best to effect an entry to the Cybertek building, before the group moves away. 

The SHIELD team splits into two: Agents May and Ward, together with most of Quan's people, go in via the roof, while Coulson, Quan, and Han, Quan's second in command, go in through the front doors.

"Sir, there's a helipad up here," comes May's voice over the comms.

"Any sign of a helicopter?" Coulson asks. 

"No, sir."

"Then let's not worry about it for now," Coulson says.

"Sir."

Skye, sitting down in the SUV on the street decides she'd prefer it if the comms had visuals as well – then she slaps her forehead and hacks into the building's internal security system. She doesn't crow when she spots Coulson and the others getting into the elevator, but she does grin at the sight of him: his shirt sleeves are neatly folded up, leaving his forearms bare, and his gun's in his hand. He'd left his jacket in the SUV before donning a Kevlar vest, and she chuckles silently at the fact that he's still wearing his tie. He looks very capable and focused, a look she finds sexy on him.

"Coulson, Raina's in the top floor lab," she tells him, having finally located the woman. "She's got Mr Chan strapped to something and appears to be drawing blood."

"It's probable she's planning – " begins Simmons from the Bus.

"To use his blood platelets – " continues Fitz.

"To stop the Centipede soldiers from exploding," finishes Simmons.

"How does that work?" asks Skye, then wonders if she'll regret asking.

"They'll mix Mr Chan's platelets – "Simmons starts.

"With the pre-existing serum – " Fitz goes on.

"And then inject that via the Centipede devices – " Simmons says.

"Which should stop them going boom," finishes Fitz.

"Huh," says Skye. 

"We'll try to stop her from using the blood platelets, then," Coulson observes.

"Be warned, sir – " begins Fitz.

"Without the platelets in his blood – "

"Mr Chan will now be – "

"Combustible," finishes Simmons.

"He'll go boom?" asks Skye worriedly.

"No," Fitz says quickly.

"He will burn himself if he – " continues Simmons.

"Tries to use his powers," concludes Fitz.

"He could easily kill himself," adds Simmons.

"We'll try to ensure that doesn't happen," Coulson tells them. Then to May and Ward, he says, "Make sure you round up anyone who's not working in the top floor lab. Agent Quan and I will grab Raina."

"Sir," chorus May and Ward.

It's a bit boring for Skye, watching and listening down in the SUV, although she suspects it's even more boring for FitzSimmons back in the Bus, as they only have the audio to tell them what's going on. Not that a lot _is_ going on – May and Ward's team find only eight other staff elsewhere in the building, which doesn't seem many to Skye, given the size of the building, but then again, what does she know about running an evil, super-soldier program? Not much is the answer.

In the top floor lab, Raina is approaching an office along the side wall with a tray full of vials of blood, which she starts packing into a box lined with foam, that's obviously been designed for exactly this task. She picks up a messenger bag and slides the box of vials into it, then pulls something else out, staring hungrily at it. It takes Skye a moment to realise that the object is the 084, the Obelisk, which Raina and some unknown party had stolen from the SHIELD base back home. The Obelisk lights up orange when she handles it and Skye stares at it with a sort of awed fascination when Raina, against expectation, doesn't get fried by the thing. It's only when Raina puts it back in the bag and starts towards the doors that Skye realises she has to let Coulson know what's going on.

"AC," she calls urgently, "Raina seems to be preparing to leave – she's put Mr Chan's blood samples into a box in a messenger bag, and she's got the Obelisk in there too."

"What?" says Coulson disbelievingly, then he bangs on the elevator button, probably hoping to induce it to move faster. 

"There are two elevators on that floor," Skye tells him, even more urgently, "and Raina's just getting into the second one."

The elevator Coulson and Agent Quan are in reaches the top floor at last and the doors begin to open; Coulson bursts through, then runs the length of the hallway, shouting over his shoulder at Agent Quan to help Mr Chan. He hits the second elevator's call button just as the doors shut, and they obligingly slide open again.

"Got you," he snarls triumphantly, grabbing Raina's upper arm in a tight grip. "You're in a lot of trouble, Raina."

She stares at him, wide-eyed, then turns a beatific smile on him. "Agent Phillip Coulson," she breathes, sounding excited. "I'm so glad to finally meet you. And my employer, the Clairvoyant, will be – "

"You're coming with me, Raina," Coulson tells her sternly. "You'll be locked up for a very long time."

"Oh no," she says breathlessly. "I assure you, Agent Coulson, that's not going to happen. I have friends in very high places."

"Yeah, and I'm friends with the Director of SHIELD," Coulson says snippily. He unhooks the messenger bag from Raina's shoulder and slings it over his own, then bangs the button for the elevator to take them to the ground floor.

"May, I've captured Raina, so Skye and I will head back to the Bus with her so we can put her in the holding cell until we get back to the Hub."

"Understood, sir."

"We'll be back in about half an hour, depending on the local traffic."

"Acknowledged."

Skye listens as Raina continues to try to persuade Coulson to let her take him to her 'employer', and she wonders whether it's actually worth allowing the woman to do that – after all, her employer has to be the person within SHIELD who'd got her into that facility to steal the Obelisk, and if they can capture him as well as Raina, well SHIELD would be safer without that traitor inside its walls.

Coulson frogmarches Raina out of the Centipede building and around the corner to the SUV. He tosses Skye the keys and asks her to drive, while he handcuffs Raina, then pushes her into the back seat before climbing up beside her. He pulls out his gun and presses it to her temple.

"Don't make any sudden moves, Raina," he tells her. "A bullet in the brain can be a pretty nasty affair, I understand."

He glances at Skye. "Drive carefully, please."

She nods, then starts up the SUV and swings it out into the traffic heading towards the Bus. The drive is short, but Raina continues trying to persuade Coulson to let her go, telling him it will benefit him too.

"I want what you want," she tells him, and he frowns at her. 

"I very much doubt that, Raina," he tells her. "I want the Obelisk back in safe custody, I want the traitor inside SHIELD who's been helping you to be locked up, and I want you to stop your dangerous experiments for Centipede. I'm pretty sure, in fact, that what I want is the exact opposite of everything you want."

"But I can help you, Agent Coulson," she says, still in that breathless tone which grates on Skye's nerves. "Don't you want to know what happened to you after the Battle of New York?"

Glancing in the mirror, Skye can see Coulson glare at Raina and she wonders why, then realises that if Raina knows information like that, her employer, the self-styled Clairvoyant, must be a very high level SHIELD agent.

"Be quiet, Raina," he says angrily. "Or, so help me, I will silence you."

Coulson's harsh tone must convince her – for the moment at least – because she shuts her mouth on whatever she was about to say; she looks sulky, Skye thinks, and it makes her look younger than Skye had initially thought her to be.

Skye pulls up at the foot of the ramp up into the Bus, and Coulson gestures for Raina to get out of the SUV, keeping his gun trained on her the whole time. 

"Do you want me to come with?" Skye asks, and he nods, so she quickly climbs out and circles around the front of the SUV, where he passes her the messenger bag.

"Take the blood samples to FitzSimmons in the lab," he tells her, "then put the Obelisk in the safe in my office."

"I don't know the code," she points out.

He leans in and whispers it in her ear, then straightens up. "I'll see our prisoner settled in her cell."

"On it." Skye hurries up the ramp, leaving Coulson to follow behind her.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

"Who is that young woman?" Raina asks as Coulson frogmarches her up the ramp.

"Never you mind," he says in a repressive tone.

"Don't you want to know what the Obelisk does?" she asks, clearly switching tack as she realises he's not going to identify Skye.

"It kills people," he tells her.

"But not everyone," she says quickly. "There are some who can handle the Obelisk, even wield its power, and use it to do good."

"Why should I believe a word you say?" he asks, unlocking the door to the holding cell and pushing her inside.

"Why would I bother lying to you, Agent Coulson? It won't achieve my ends if I do that. If I take the Obelisk to the Doctor, he will help the Clairvoyant to finish his project, and the Clairvoyant will finally give me the answers I've been searching for."

He shakes his head and finishes fastening the shackle on the leg of the chair he's pushed her into, then attaches the cuff around her ankle.

"You'll have to do better than that, Raina," he tells her. "Giving these people codenames may make you feel clever – " 

"But I didn't," she says quickly. "The Doctor's name is unpronounceable, and the Clairvoyant has never told me his name. The names I use for them are the ones they've given me to use." She cocks her head at him. "Names are very important, don't you think?"

"I think you talk to much," he tells her, and turns away. 

He's just reached the door when Skye appears, breathless and excited.

"Coulson," she gasps. "The Obelisk – it lit up."

"What?" He glances at her gloved hands in puzzlement.

"When I took it out of the bag to put it in your safe, it lit up – glowing orange lines seemed to rise out of the stone. Just like when she handled it, back in the lab earlier." She nods at Raina, who looks practically orgasmic with excitement at Skye's news, and Coulson wishes he'd already been outside the cell by the time Skye had broken her news.

"Your young friend must come with me to see the Doctor," Raina tells him; she seems both excited and anxious.

"Why would I need to see a doctor?" asks Skye, sounding puzzled.

"Not 'a' doctor," Raina says urgently. "The Doctor – he's the man who knows all about the Obelisk – how to wield its power without dying."

Skye glances at Coulson, and he can see the hope of finding some answers to who she is in her eyes – she does wear her heart on her sleeve, this one, on her face, too. He wavers. He is worried that if they let Raina take the Obelisk to this Doctor person, he will wreak havoc with it, but at the same time, he's not sure he can deny Skye the chance to find out more about who she is, and what her status as an 084 really means for her.

She doesn't ask him, though – she's dropped her gaze and is waiting for him to tell her what happens next. She trusts him, and he is a little scared by just how much her trust means to him.

"Very well," he says. "But no funny stuff." He glares at Raina. "You try anything at all, and I won't hesitate to shoot you."

"No, no funny stuff," Raina says quickly, breathlessly excited again.

"We'll come back for you when we're ready to leave," he tells her, then locks her in. He catches hold of Skye's elbow and guides her down the hallway.

"I'm sorry, AC," she says meekly. She doesn't seem excited by his capitulation, if anything she seems chastened. "I shouldn't have just blurted that out in front of Raina. I was just so surprised."

He shakes his head, releasing her elbow, then lifts both hands to cup her face. "I don't know who this man is that Raina wants to go to with the Obelisk, but I'm worried about him using it – against us, against everyone."

"So we don't go," she says immediately. "We stick with the plan. We take Raina to the Fridge, and the Obelisk somewhere else safe."

He shakes his head again. "No. There's a chance this man might have some answers for you – you deserve to find out anything you can about who you are, or how you're an 084." He takes a deep breath. "But we'll both go armed. You can take one of Fitz's new Night-Night guns, the small ones."

"But I've never even fired a gun," she protests.

"Even so, I'd feel better if you were to carry one." He gives her a list of items to collect. "I'll fetch the Obelisk," he tells her. "And _we_ will be the ones to carry it."

She nods, then hurries off to get the stuff, including a Night-Night gun from Fitz. Coulson pulls out his phone and calls May. She's probably not going to be happy about this, but then again, she's not the lead agent. 

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Raina reveals that 'the Doctor' is on the mainland, which worries Coulson – he thinks he should have got that detail from her before agreeing to take her to this fellow, but it's too late now. They take a helicopter – Hong Kong has them available to hire as easily as cabs – and he doesn't want to drag his people away from Agent Quan by taking the Bus.

The trip passes in an enforced silence since it's far too noisy to sustain a conversation, and Coulson's grateful for that – there's nothing he wants to discuss in front of Raina, whom he doesn't trust as far as he could throw her. Her breathless little girl persona is a mask, he knows – she has to be smarter than she likes to pretend for her to be managing the Centipede group. 

The pilot sets them down in a small town near the mountains, then flies off, and the three of them prepare to hike to the spot where Raina's Doctor has his base. He makes her walk in front so he can keep a close eye on her, while Skye walks beside him unless the path makes it necessary to walk single file.

"Are you regretting this?" Skye asks him softly.

"A little," he says, "but only because I don't like all the unknown variables in play here." She takes his free hand in hers and squeezes, and he returns the gesture, but his eyes never leave Raina's back as she leads them upwards.

Eventually they see a cave in the mountainside above them.

"He's here," Raina says, pointing up at the cave mouth. She turns a greedy look on Coulson and Skye. "Give me the 084 to show him we come in good faith."

Coulson snorts. "Not gonna happen, Raina," he says firmly, so that she won't argue. "Get going." He gestures her forward with his gun, and she glares at him, then resumes walking up the steep, narrow path.

"Let's hope this trip's worth it," Skye mutters.

"Hear, hear."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Raina enters the cave first, and she's only gone a few paces when they hear her cry out. Coulson and Skye hurry forwards, both wary, and see a man standing a few feet inside the entrance.

Coulson stares at the stranger: he's over six feet tall, with unruly brown hair, and a wild expression in his eyes. He holds Raina's wrist in a steel grip, and Coulson wonders if he's a Centipede soldier who's tired of taking orders.

"What have you done to my daughter?" demands the man. "She reeks of humanity."

"Your daughter?" asks Coulson, uncertain who the man means.

The man speaks rapidly and angrily, to judge by the tone, in a language Coulson doesn't know – a Chinese dialect, he thinks, and beside him Skye stirs, then speaks more slowly and with hesitation, to the man. 

Coulson feels his stomach clench and his heart seems to lurch in his chest when he realises that the man is Skye's father. He speaks again and Skye shakes her head emphatically.

"Why have you tainted her?" demands the man angrily, switching back to English.

Skye folds her arms over her chest. "I am not tainted," she informs him in a snippy tone. "Who are you? And what do you want with this woman?"

The man looks at Raina as if he'd forgotten she was even there, then jerks her closer, disengaging his hand from her wrist and putting both hands around her in neck in a swift, smooth move.

"Nothing, now," he says, and casually breaks her neck before tossing her to the floor of the cave as if she's nothing more than a broken doll.

Skye utters a cry of horror, then launches herself at the man before Coulson can move or even think to try to stop her. In moments the man has her on her knees at his feet, both arms twisted painfully up behind her back.

"This is no way for a daughter of my house to behave," he roars.

"I'm no daughter of yours," Skye spits, clearly determined to defy the man despite his immense strength and anger. "I refuse to acknowledge you as my father. I deny you have any right to tell me what to do or how to behave. You are a monster."

The man roars with rage, hauling Skye up off her feet to throw her bodily across the cave, and Coulson finds he's already running towards her even before she lands against the wall with a sickening crunch of bone breaking on rock. 

He reaches her side as she slides down to the cave floor, but she is already trying to push herself up again, to his complete disbelief.

"The 084," she gasps, "give it to me, please."

Coulson wants to argue, but fears they don't have time, and he somehow senses she knows better than he does what's going on, so he slides the backpack off his back, dumps it on the ground, then yanks open the top. Skye reaches in and pulls out the Obelisk, and it lights up in her hand, raised orange patterns appearing to lift right out of the stone.

As soon as it's in her hands, the man who'd called himself her father turns towards her, then stops dead, as if stunned by the sight of the Obelisk – which is hardly surprising, Coulson thinks, since the glowing of the orange lines is intensifying until light is pouring out of it, and reaching across the cave to engulf the man. Coulson starts moving towards him, although with what intention he doesn't really know.

The man screams, a harsh, tearing sound that goes up in pitch as the light changes from orange to white, then vanishes into black with an abruptness that leaves Coulson blinking, his eyes watering heavily.

"Skye?" he calls as he tries to see despite the darkness of the cave.

"Here." Her voice seems to be just a faint thread of sound, and he has to fight down panic, telling himself that she is probably hurt from her collision with the rock wall earlier.

"I can't see you," he tells her, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Here," she says again and he sees a faint orange glow appear in the darkness. He crosses towards her and finds her sprawled on the cave floor, the 084 in her hand; she looks like she's gone three rounds with the Hulk, if he's honest: there are rips in her clothing, through which he can see bruises blooming on her skin, and he suppresses a shudder of horror.

"Where are you hurt?" he asks, knowing that to ask if she's okay would be not only pointless but stupid.

"Everywhere hurts," she says, her tone flat and matter-of-fact.

"What did you break?" he asks instead, trying to get specifics from her.

"I don't know if the bones are actually broken," she tells him, "but my left leg and wrist feel pretty crappy."

"Okay." He's kneeling beside her now and he nods at the Obelisk. "Do you want to put that back in the bag?"

"Didn't we bring a flashlight?" she counters, and he nods, digging it out of the bag. It's less a flashlight and more of a hand lantern, which is good in the circumstances. He sets it on the cave floor, then holds the backpack open for Skye to set the 084 inside.

"Oh God." She slumps down like a puppet that's had its strings cut.

"Skye?" He touches her shoulder, fighting panic once again. 

"Coulson," she whispers.

"I'm here," he says. "What do you need?"

"Energy," she answers in a faint voice. "No energy left."

He digs in the side pocket of the backpack and finds some of the rations Simmons had insisted Skye bring with them. He unwraps an energy bar and gives her half, putting it into her hand. "Here."

She takes it and chews slowly while he pulls out the thermos of coffee that's also in the bag. He pours out a cup for her, then adds sugar liberally, before wrapping her right hand around the cup.

"I should strap up your wrist, at least," he tells her.

"Yeah." She sounds utterly exhausted.

He digs back into the bag and finds the first aid kit. "Painkillers," he says, holding out two on the flat of his hand. She passes him the coffee cup and takes the tablets from him, dry swallowing them, before she takes the coffee back.

"Thanks." She stills sounds drained, he thinks, and he concentrates on strapping up her wrist, then he gives her the rest of the energy bar to eat while he packs things away again.

"We need to get out of here," he tells her. He's desperate to know what's happened here, but getting Skye to safety and warmth matter more at the moment.

"Yeah," she says. "Don't think I'll be able to walk very far though."

"No, I'll have to carry you outside. Then I'll call May on the satphone, and hopefully she'll be here within a couple of hours."

"Yeah."

He slips both arms through the straps of the backpack and settles it comfortably in place, then picks up the flashlight. "Can you carry this for me, while I carry you?"

"Okay."

He gives her the lantern, and she clutches it against her chest, then he crouches down beside her and lifts her carefully, grateful that she's a fairly slim woman. She grunts when he picks her up, but she doesn't complain, and he feels her loop her arm around his neck.

He is immensely glad when they reach the open air, and he carefully sets Skye down on a length of fallen tree trunk, then shrugs off the backpack to pull out the satphone.

To his relief May answers immediately, and promises to be with them as soon as she can get the Bus to them. He thanks her, then pockets the phone, before moving the backpack next to Skye's feet. 

"It's going to be dark soon," he tells her, "and cold, so I'm going to build a fire to give us some warmth and light until May gets here. Will you be all right for now while I fetch some wood?"

She nods, and he crouches down beside her. "I don't know just what happened back there, but I'm hoping you'll tell me. It doesn't have to go into a report, if you prefer that, but I do need to know."

She nods, then hugs her arms around herself, and he leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. "I'll be as quick as I can."

He doesn't like leaving her there, but he knows how urgently they'll need a fire soon, so he moves away swiftly to find fallen branches that he can manage to carry.

The light from the lantern guides him back to Skye some twenty minutes later, and he finds her hunched on the log, looking cold, uncomfortable, and if he's honest, like she'll pass out at any moment.

He quickly breaks the branches into smaller pieces, then sets about building a fire, grateful that he's done this often enough over the years that he's not forgotten how.

Skye watches him in silence, but once the fire's lit she asks, in a rather small voice, "Will you sit with me?"

"Of course," he says swiftly, and comes to perch beside her. "Do you want some more coffee?"

"No. Can you – that is, would it be okay for you to hold me, please?"

"I can do that," he tells her, and shifts slightly so that he can ease her back against his chest, then he slips his arms around her, and feels pleased when her muscles relax and she snuggles back against him.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

"The 084 is called the Diviner," she begins. "So called because it has the power to divine who is worthy to touch it. It's the key to a hidden city which contains a temple to which the worthy are expected to make their way for their protection when the Earth is cleansed of humanity by the power within the Diviner. Power that can only be unleashed in full by the Chosen One."

"How do you know all this?" Coulson asks curiously.

"I'm one of the worthy." There's a pause, then in a smaller voice she adds, "It thinks I am the Chosen One."

"It thinks?" he asks, surprised by her word choice.

"Yeah. There's an alien intelligence inside the Obelisk. It was brought to Earth thousands of years ago by aliens – tall, blue humanoids who intended to wipe out all but a select few humans."

"Blue aliens?" he asks, and Skye twists around to look at him.

"You know something about them?"

He frowns, then shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe? I feel as if I should know something about them – but I don't know what." He scowls. "I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"It's okay," she tells him. She takes a deep breath and he feels her muscles tense.

"What did you do to that man – your father?"

"He would have used the Diviner to destroy humanity," she says. "He could somehow sense our connection – not just that we're soulmates, but that we've become lovers. That's why he called me tainted. He wanted to destroy you – but painfully slowly – while I watched."

She shudders in his arms and he tightens them around her in response.

"I used the Diviner – " She pauses, and after a moment he realises she's crying now. "It was him or you," she says, "but he wouldn't have stopped at you. Everyone else I care about would have been destroyed next, then the rest of humanity."

He kisses her softly, trying to soothe her. He understands why she did what she did, and he knows that even though she loves him, and had never met her father before today, it must still have been hard to destroy him. To take a life, even in defence of others, is still a momentous thing.

Eventually Skye's sobs subside, and he asks, "Is there any more you want to tell me?"

She nods, swallowing audibly. "My mother – I saw her – I guess you'd call it a vision. She was beautiful. Until she was killed by a scientist. My mother was one of the worthy – and she encountered a scientist in 1945 who was trying to unlock the mysteries of the Diviner. He'd been locked up, but she met him again in 1989 after he was given medical parole from his incarceration by a man named Pierce. She hadn't aged in forty-four years, but he had, so he experimented on her until he was able to discover how to restore his health and become younger-looking."

"You saw all this in the vision?" Coulson asks gently.

"The Diviner – or the intelligence inside it – showed me when I wielded it against my father. It was horrifying – the scientist literally took her to pieces so that when she was dead she wasn't a corpse, just a shell."

He kisses her cheek, holding her close as she begins to sob again. "Do you know who the scientist was?" he asks.

She shakes her head slightly. "I'd recognise him if I saw a photo, but I didn't find out his name."

"When you say this man was locked up – was that by SHIELD?"

"Must have been the SSR," she says. "I got the impression he was locked up at the end of the second world war."

"Then I'll have a talk with Director Fury and see if we can get access to the SSR's old files. This scientist should be in them somewhere, and then we'll track him down." He nuzzles the side of her neck for a moment, then adds, "I think he must have been HYDRA, the scientist – what you describe of his experimentation on your mother sounds exactly like HYDRA. A man like that definitely needs to be locked up again if he still lives."

"Yeah." 

Skye sounds sleepy, he notices, which isn't too surprising given how busy the last two days have been.

"Will May be here soon?" she asks.

He checks his watch. "She'll probably be another hour yet."

"Oh."

"Get some rest," he says. "I'll keep watch."

"Yeah."

She settles herself back against him, her back to his chest, and he tightens his arms around her, pondering all that she has told him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and Skye learn there's more to the events surrounding the Battle of New York than they thought, and everything's getting complicated...

For the second time in a few days Skye wakes up in her bunk with no recollection of arriving there. Her entire body aches, and she has light plaster casts on her lower left leg and her left wrist.

Coulson is sitting on a chair in the doorway to her bunk, and as soon as she stirs, he looks up from the tablet he's poring over.

"How long was I out?" she asks.

"It's nearly twenty four hours since May picked us up," he tells her.

She feels some alarm at the length of time, which must show in her face because Coulson's quick to reassure her.

"Skye, you were in pretty bad shape. Your tibia and fibia are both broken, your left wrist is fractured, and you were so badly bruised you looked like you'd been in a fight with the Hulk. On top of all that, you were having nightmares – violent ones. Simmons was really worried, and felt it would be better if she sedated you to help you to rest and to begin healing. She was very concerned about your brain biochemistry levels, which were off-the-charts weird, as she phrased it. She advised me that sedating you would be in your best interests, and I agreed with her. She would have made you stay in bed today anyway, so there was no reason not to ensure you slept."

She nods, and tries to sit up, before realising that she needs both hands to push herself up. Coulson immediately gets up, setting aside the tablet, and helps her, piling her pillows up behind her.

"Better?"

"Yeah. Thanks. How did the others get on in Hong Kong? Did they get Chan Ho Yin out?"

"No, unfortunately. According to May he went a bit psychotic after Raina took his blood – tried to kill her and the rest of our team."

"Is everyone all right?" she asks quickly.

"Our team is fine, but the operation wasn't without casualties besides Mr Chan. We also lost Agent Quan. Mr Chan killed him."

She winces and looks at him knowing he'll feel bad about that – he'll probably even blame himself in part, since SHIELD reached the Centipede lab too late to stop Raina and her scientists. She knows, too, that Coulson won't consider Raina's subsequent death at the hands of Skye's father to be a plus point.

"Helluva night, huh?" she says, and he gives her a wry look.

He'd retreated to his chair once he'd helped her to sit up, and she pats the bed beside her.

"Will you sit here and talk to me?"

He gives her a look she can't read, then asks hesitantly, "Are you and I okay?"

She frowns at him. "Why wouldn't we be?" The question makes no sense to her. 

He comes to sit on the edge of the bed, being careful not to jostle her leg, and turns towards her.

"What did you mean?" she asks.

"After what you did last night," he says, "killing your father to save me, I wasn't sure if we were going to be okay."

"Okay, two things. One, did you miss the part where I snuggled up to you last night after you carried me out of the cave? I wouldn't have done that if things weren't okay between us. And second, I love you Coulson, but I didn't kill my father to save you. Or not just you, anyway. My father was crazy – as in I'm-gonna-destroy-all-of-humanity-except-a-chosen-few. A chosen few, by the way, who were deemed worthy by a weird alien artefact. So it wasn't a case of you or him, it was a case of _us_ or him, and I chose all of humanity. If you're feeling guilt about his death and your survival, stop right now."

He bows his head, then mutters an agreement.

She rests her splinted wrist on his thigh. "Did you tell the others what happened in the cave?" 

"No. We'll do a full debrief once they get back."

"Where are they?" Skye realises what she hadn't registered before – the Bus isn't moving at present.

"We're back in Hong Kong – May and Ward are working with the local SHIELD agents to interrogate the staff at Raina's lab, while FitzSimmons examine the tech – hardware and biochemical."

"What about the computers?" she asks immediately.

"We've left those for you."

She looks at her wrist. "Yeah, it's gonna take me longer to do it one-handed, assuming I can get to them."

"I can type for you," Coulson says immediately. "I'm not as wicked fast as you," Skye chuckles at his phrasing, recognising words she's used about herself in their past conversations, "but I'm not entirely slow. And getting you there won't be a problem. We've got a wheelchair on board."

"Let's go then," she says eagerly, already shuffling her legs across the bed.

"Hold on," he says quickly, clasping her forearm. 

"What?" she asks impatiently.

"First, Simmons needs to okay you getting up because I'm not risking your health for the sake of Centipede's computers. Second, you need to eat – it's been more than twenty-four hours since you had anything besides an energy bar."

"Oh." She realises that she is hungry, in fact, so she settles back on her bed, and agrees to let him make her some food, after he's called Simmons back to the Bus for her go-ahead on Skye getting up.

Coulson contacts Simmons, then disappears into the galley, returning a short time later with a bowl of stir-fry and some noodles. She's already eaten most of it when Simmons arrives.

"Hello. Someone's looking better than the last time I saw her," Simmons says cheerily, and Skye smiles at her. 

"I feel better," she assures her.

"Good." 

Skye submits patiently as Simmons checks her pulse, blood pressure, brain biochemistry, and various other things. She watches Coulson from the corner of her eye as he stands a short distance away, watching Simmons' tests with an attentive expression on his face.

"All right," Simmons says eventually. "You can get up for a bit, but if you start to feel tired, you must return to bed."

"I'll make sure she doesn't overdo it," Coulson promises and Simmons flashes him a smile.

"I'm counting on it, sir."

"Hey," Skye protests.

The other two smile at her, and she huffs dramatically at them.

"I'll get back to the lab, sir, if that's okay with you?" Simmons asks.

Coulson nods. "We'll be along shortly," he says, and the young scientist hurries away.

"Is there anything you need equipment-wise?" he asks.

"If you've got a spare external hard drive kicking around, we can download all of Centipede's data, then look at it at our leisure – not to mention upload it for SHIELD's people to pore over."

He nods. "I'll check the lab – and fetch that wheelchair."

She doesn't much fancy being trundled about in a wheelchair, but concedes it's her only option since her fractured wrist won't support her weight while she uses crutches. 

Coulson returns with the hard drive and its cable, and a wheelchair which he unfolds, before picking her up bodily from her bed and settling her into the chair.

"All set?"

She nods, and he wheels the chair into a tiny elevator she hadn't even know the Bus possessed, then down the cargo ramp and onto the street. He grabs a cab, and they're at the lab within fifteen minutes.

They settle at a desk in one of the offices, and Skye one-handedly explores what files are on the servers, before she lets Coulson take over in actually copying the data onto the hard drive.

They're just finishing up – the last few folders are transferring – when May comes in with one of the local agents, and Skye is somewhat startled when May greets her with a smile and the comment that it's good to see her up and about.

She listens with only half an ear as May and the local agent summarise to Coulson the results of their interviews with Raina's scientists, then she's wholly distracted from their conversation when she notices that one of the folders being copied onto the hard drive is labelled 'Phillip J Coulson'. She glances up at the three agents, but they're too engrossed in their conversation to notice anything, and Skye, who can still type pretty fast even one-handed, rapidly opens the folder and scans its contents.

She bites her lip to stop herself from saying anything to Coulson in front of May and the local agent, but she decides that he will need to see the folder as soon as possible.

She waits until they're in the elevator on the Bus before she mentions it.

"AC?"

"Yeah?"

"Why would Centipede have your SHIELD personnel files in their records."

"What do you mean?" He looks stunned, disbelieving, then angry – all of which she understands. "Skye, what are you talking about?" His tone is urgent.

"This," she says, tapping the hard drive that's sitting in her lap. "When the files were copying across from Centipede's servers, I saw a folder which had your name on it, so I took a quick look before we left the lab – and it contains psych evaluations, medical records – your whole SHIELD history, so far as I could tell with just one quick look."

"We'd better go to my office," he says, "so you can show me."

The elevator doors have just opened on the floor where the bunks, galley, and lounge are located, so he hits the button to take them up to the next floor where his office and bedroom are located.

He wheels her into his office, then lifts her carefully into the big leather chair, and Skye immediately plugs the external drive into her laptop, then pulls up the folder of files on Coulson, before turning the laptop so that they can both see what's there.

"You remember how Raina told us about the guy she called the Clairvoyant?" Skye asks as he begins looking through the folder. "What if he's not psychic at all which, granted, you never believed he was – but just a high level SHIELD agent. The same one who aided Raina to steal the Diviner."

He rubs a hand over his face, and she realises how tired he looks. She wonders when he last slept – had he sat by her bed the whole time she'd been under sedation? She hopes not, but it wouldn't surprise her if he had – it seems characteristic of the man he is.

"That would make sense," he says, "much more sense than an actual clairvoyant at any rate. But how the hell are we going to find them?"

She rests her hand on his arm. "We'll figure something out," she tells him, hoping that she sounds reassuring.

Together they begin looking through the files in his folder, and what they find disturbs her greatly. 

"This psych evaluation, the one from after the Battle of New York – am I misreading it, or – " She breaks off because it's implying that Coulson didn't merely nearly die, but that he was actually dead for some time.

"Shit, AC," she whispers.

"Yeah," he says heavily. She reaches out and clasps his hand as he pages through the rest of the document, before closing it and opening another.

"What's that?" she asks softly. 

"A report from – well, I thought Dr Streiten was my heart surgeon, but now I'm not sure what sort of surgeon he is."

Before they can begin reading it in detail, May calls on the comm to tell him that the equipment he'd wanted to bring back from Raina's lab is all loaded and safely stowed away, then she asks if he's ready to leave.

"Yeah. We'll head straight to the Hub," he tells her, and May confirms, then a moment later, they hear the "all hands" announcement that warns them wheels are up in five minutes.

"I need to call Director Fury," Coulson says, "And then we'd better have a team debriefing."

"Are you going to tell them about my father?"

"You can tell them what happened, Skye, and I'll leave it to your discretion to decide just which details you feel comfortable sharing."

"Thanks," she whispers. 

He gives her hand a squeeze, then gets to his feet and crosses to his desk to call Director Fury. While he does that, Skye busies herself in looking through some of the other data she took from Centipede's servers.

As she skim reads, she tries not to wonder what's in that doctor's report that Coulson abandoned: the idea that he actually died, and was then brought back is a painful one. The fact that she didn't even know him then is irrelevant to her – she hates the idea of his being hurt, never mind killed – it leaves her feeling shaky and dry-mouthed.

She doesn't realise that she's literally shaking until Coulson's hand clasps her shoulder, pulling her from her haze of misery.

"Skye?"

"Phil." She chokes on his name and he gives her an alarmed look, then crouches down beside her chair.

"What's wrong?" he asks softly.

She shakes her head, then mutters, "I was thinking about the fact you actually died."

He leans in and wraps his arms around her, and she clings to him, aware that she's crying – which she thinks is ridiculous since he's very much alive and well right now.

"Skye." His voice is soft and she's glad that he doesn't seem annoyed by her reaction – or rather, over-reaction, because it is an over-reaction to mourn the man's death when he's currently hugging her.

"I'm okay," she mutters, pulling back a little. "Sorry."

"No need to apologise," he says in a mild tone.

"It's dumb, crying over you dying when you're right here."

He shakes his head. "I'm kinda flattered, actually."

She looks at him doubtfully, and he smiles, and she smiles back. "Did you get hold of Director Fury?"

"No. I've left a message for him though." He gives her a squeeze, then asks, "Ready for the debriefing?"

"Yeah."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Once the debriefing is over, Skye and Coulson return to his office, but after half an hour, he insists that she should go to bed before she overtires herself.

"If you wear yourself out, you'll have Simmons after both of us."

"Not scared of her, are you AC?" she teases.

"No," he says, a bit too emphatically, which makes Skye laugh. "I just prefer not to antagonise our medical people," he says, in what she supposes he'd insist is a dignified tone.

"You never know when or how they might take their revenge," he points out.

"Fair point," she agrees, then stifles a yawn.

"Come on," he says promptly, "let's get you back to your bunk."

She nods, and if he's relieved that she doesn't ask to sleep with him tonight, it doesn't show in his face.

He's wheeling her out of the lift, turning towards the bunks, when Simmons appears.

"There you are," she says, sounding worried. 

"What's up?" Skye asks immediately.

"Nothing. I just was worried about you pulling an all-nighter to work on the Centipede data."

"Don't worry, Jemma," Coulson says, "I promised I wouldn't let Skye wear herself out."

Simmons opens her mouth, then shuts it again, making Skye chuckle.

"I'm not sure Jemma entirely trusts you on that score, AC," she teases.

He chuckles in turn. "No, she probably thinks I'm a bad influence on you."

Skye sees Simmons turning pink as Coulson teases her, and she grins at her friend.

Arriving at Skye's bunk, Coulson lifts her out of the wheelchair, then lowers her onto the bed, and she's a little surprised when he kisses her cheek before bidding her goodnight. Simmons looks rather startled, but she waits until Coulson's gone before asking, "Are you and Agent Coulson an item?"

Skye huffs a laugh at that as she begins struggling to unbutton her shirt.

"Please would you close the door, Jemma?" Her friend complies and Skye asks quietly, "Can you keep a secret?"

At her friend's nod, she tells Simmons, "AC and I are soulmates." She shows the young scientist the 'red string' mark on her wrist. "It matches his exactly."

"Is that what that is?" Simmons asks in an excited whisper. "I saw Agent Coulson's when he was having a medical, but I didn't know what it was."

"Yeah. In Chinese folklore it means that the two people are soulmates – destined to be together."

"Oh." She seems to notice Skye's struggling with her shirt, and says, "Let me?"

Skye nods, and feels grateful when Simmons helps her out of her clothes and into her pyjamas.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks once she's satisfied Skye's comfortable.

"I wouldn't say no to some painkillers," she admits, aware that her leg is aching horribly.

"I keep some in my bunk," Simmons tells her, and slips out of Skye's bunk, returning moments later.

"Here." She shakes two pills out of a bottle and gives them to Skye, then puts the bottle on the shelf behind her bed. "Two every four hours, if you need them," Simmons says.

"Thanks."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

The next morning Coulson, after fetching Skye from her bunk and having breakfast with her, wheels her into his office and they settle together on the couch since that makes it easier for both of them to look at her laptop. 

They begin to go through the files in Coulson's folder, as Skye explains, "I didn't see your folder initially because it's actually a sub-folder of a sub-folder for something called 'Stage 3'."

"Stage 3?"

"Of the Centipede project." She opens a document and shows him the notes therein. "We'd probably have to give this to FitzSimmons to understand it properly," she tells him, and he can see what she means – the medical and technological jargon are beyond his almost non-existent scientific background.

"But this bit I do understand," she says, and points to a section near the bottom of the final page.

"Establish how Agent Coulson survived attack by Loki prior to Battle of New York. His most recent psych evaluation indicates his injury was vastly more serious than most agents of SHIELD are aware, including Coulson himself. Did he die for more than forty seconds? Interrogate Dr Streiten and anyone else who performed surgery on Agent Coulson to determine the facts."

He finishes reading the paragraph aloud, then stares at Skye, who's got an apprehensive look on her face but, he realises, she's not afraid _of_ him, but rather _for_ him, and he feels comforted by her courage and strength of mind.

"I think we should find this Dr Streiten for ourselves," she tells him. "Find out what did happen to you, and also find out who else has been to see him about your treatment."

He nods. "It'd be easier if I could get hold of Director Fury," he observes.

"I'm not sure that it would, AC."

He looks at her in surprise. "Why not?"

"Think about how much he's already kept from you, the stuff he's omitted to tell you. If you were actually properly dead, then they must've done something pretty experimental to bring you back. How much, exactly, do you remember of events?"

He rubs a hand absent-mindedly over the scar on his chest. "I remember Loki's spear entering my chest," he admits, and Skye's uninjured hand clasps his. "The next thing I remember is the R&R in Tahiti. A woman massaging the back of my neck, and a guy bringing me drinks on a tray."

"But nothing in between?" she asks, lacing her fingers through his. "Nothing of your stay in the hospital, of the visitors who came to see you there?"

"No, nothing," he says slowly, realising for the first time how odd that is.

She nods. "Yeah, I reckon Fury did a lot of covering up," she says, her voice tight with anger. "Whatever they did to you, it must've been something really big – it was obviously very experimental, to be kept so strictly secret. And if they kept it secret even from you, Fury must have found a way to make you forget all the medical stuff in between being stabbed and the R&R."

What she says makes sense; he hates the idea of Fury lying to him – Coulson has been his protégé since entering SHIELD, and it hurts to think of Fury keeping secrets from him, but there's no arguing with Skye's logic.

"So we need to find Dr Streiten," he says.

"And fast," Skye says, "because if he's said anything at all to any other SHIELD agent, then it'll be this 'Clairvoyant', and that means even bigger trouble for us."

"How so?" he asks, confused by the intense way she says this.

She gives his hand a little shake. "Think about it, AC," she urges. "If the Clairvoyant wants this information, it'll be because he's looking for a way to make the Centipede soldiers – well, immortal, I guess."

"I'd better see if I can get hold of Dr Streiten," he says, getting to his feet. Skye is still holding onto his hand, and she gives it a little tug. 

"I think it might be better to just go and see him," she suggests. "After all, if Centipede, or the Clairvoyant, hasn't got to him yet, you don't want to alert them to the fact that you're interested in him."

"I should have thought of that," he admits sheepishly, sitting down again.

"Well, you're not used to thinking in terms of a having a traitor in your midst," she points out sensibly.

He rubs his free hand over his face; he feels old suddenly, and too tired for this.

"You look like you could use some more sleep," she observes gently.

"Yeah, I didn't sleep much last night, or at all the night before."

"You should go and get some rest," she tells him, her expression serious. "We're not going to reach the Hub for a few more hours yet."

He hesitates, terribly tempted by the idea.

"Go on," Skye urges. "If I need any help, I'll buzz for May or Simmons. And neither of _them_ will think any less of you for catching up on some sleep when they know you kept vigil at my bedside two nights ago."

He hopes he's not blushing at her words, although his ears definitely feel warm. "Very well." He gives her a tired, grateful smile. "Thank you."

He leans over and kisses her, and she laughs softly, then pushes at his chest. "Phil," she says sternly, "as nice as this is, this is _not_ you getting some sleep."

"No," he agrees sheepishly. He gets to his feet, then brushes his hand over her shoulder as he passes on his way to his room. He doesn't really expect to sleep, but if he lies down and keeps his eyes closed, perhaps he can fool his body into allowing him to rest.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

To his surprise, Coulson wakes some time later to the realisation that he's been soundly asleep for some time. He rolls over to squint at his watch on the night stand, and sees Skye watching him.

"Everything all right?" he asks quickly.

She nods. "We're about an hour out from the Hub. I came to wake you so that you'd have time to freshen up before we arrive."

"Thank you." He frowns at her. "Hang on, how did you get in here?"

She gives him a pleased smile. "Wheeled myself on in." She grabs the rims on the wheels, and moves the chair back and forth. "Turns out there's at least one benefit to being an 084 – an accelerated healing process."

He sits up, scrubbing at his eyes, then looks over at her. "That's very good news," he tells her, meaning it.

"I thought so." Her gleeful expression sobers. "I think we should tell Simmons that I'm an 084. Get her input on this."

He nods. "If you want to tell her, then you should."

"She might be able to give me some idea of how soon I can get out of this thing." She taps on the arm of the wheelchair.

"All right. Let me freshen up and get dressed, then we'll go down and talk to her."

She nods, then turns the wheelchair around and rolls out. Coulson's surprised by this development, but pleased too. If Skye is going to be back on her feet sooner rather than later, so much the better.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Simmons' initial reaction to the news that Skye's an 084 is shock, but not horror, for which Skye's grateful. The shock quickly turns into utter fascination, however – she can hardly believe how excited Simmons is by the news that her team mate is an 084.

"All those tests I ran the other day," she beings, "DNA and blood tests, biochem tests – they were you, trying to figure out if you're an alien or – "

"Yes," Skye says quickly, cutting in before Simmons can get carried away by the possibilities.

"But there's nothing obviously different about your DNA or blood," Simmons says. "I checked very carefully."

"I believe that you did," Skye says. "So how do you explain my accelerated healing – a lucky, freak accident?"

Simmons shakes her head. "No. The only person I know who can heal that fast is Steve Rogers.

"Simmons," Skye says, fondly yet also exasperatedly, "I'm not a super-soldier." She just manages not to roll her eyes at her friend.

"I know that," Simmons says, "but what I'm saying is that I've never come across this kind of accelerated healing before. What more can you tell me about what you learned during your encounter with your father?"

"What do you mean, what more?" counters Skye.

"Skye, I might be the world's worst liar, but I'm not stupid – I feel sure there was more that you didn't tell us. I'm not asking to be prurient – I'm asking as a scientist and your friend. I want to help you find more answers, if I can, but I need all the data you have available to help me do that."

She heaves a sigh, then nods. "Very well." She looks around. "Will you sit down so I don't have to crane my neck to talk to you?"

"Of course." Simmons drags a couple of stools over and the three of them settle around the corner of the holo-table, Skye's wheelchair between Coulson and Simmons. She tells her friend everything she learned during her encounter with her father, and Simmons takes rapid notes. 

"I wish we knew more about the Obelisk," she says when Skye's finished her account.

"I believe Howard Stark investigated it when the SSR first captured it," Coulson says. "We'll have to see if we can get you access to his records from the archive."

"What about the records of that scientist?" Skye asks. "The one I saw in my vision, experimenting – " She stops, and Simmons' hand clasps her right forearm, while Coulson grabs her knee.

"Yes," Coulson says, not letting her finish her sentence. "We'll have to check the SSR archive for him, too. If his research was captured when he was, then there's a good chance it's in the archive, too. But we'll need to identify him before we can check."

"It sounds like he was a HYDRA scientist," Simmons observes.

"That's what we thought," Skye tells her. "The Nazis were big on weird experiments, after all."

Simmons nods. "Let me check something," she says, and wanders across the lab.

"Are you okay?" Coulson asks.

Skye nods, not sure she trusts her voice for the moment.

"Sure?" he says, "because no one's gonna think less of you if you're not okay."

She inhales deeply. "I will be," she says firmly. 

He nods, then leans in and gives her a quick, chaste kiss, before Simmons comes back with a tablet in her hand.

"You said that the scientist was held in captivity until Secretary Pierce gave him medical parole," Simmons says. "Is this him?"

She puts the tablet down on the table in front of them, and Skye can't help gasping a little.

"Yeah, that's him," she says, staring at the photograph, and she feels Coulson clasping her hand.

"Werner Reinhardt," Coulson reads aloud. "He's almost certainly going by another name now, though. Assuming he's not dead yet."

Skye nods.

"But his research will be under his birth name," Simmons says, "assuming it was captured when he was, so that's somewhere to start."

"True."

Simmons nods. "Leave this with me, then sir, Skye. I'll let you both know what I find out once I've done some research."

"Thanks, Jemma," Skye says.

"Thank you," Coulson echoes. 

Skye lets him wheel her out of the lab, and they take the elevator back up to his office. 

"Wheels down in ten," May tells them via the intercom as they enter the office.

"We're going to have to be debriefed," Coulson says. "I'm hoping it'll be Commander Hill – I'm not sure where Director Fury's gone, but he must be involved in a mission since he still hasn't got back to me."

"What's Commander Hill like?" asks Skye.

"Young, considering she's Fury's second-in-command, but then Fury's always cared more about competence than seniority. Some agents believe she was promoted purely to be eye-candy at the top."

"You don't," Skye observes, and he smiles at her.

"No. How do you know that?"

"Well, for a start, you'd never demean a woman by referring to her as eye-candy." He nods. "And for another thing, when you talk about her, you sound respectful, which tells me you think she's the right person for the job." He nods again. "Finally, you mostly trust Director Fury, so you trust his judgement in others, and believe that if he thinks Commander Hill is the right person for the job, then she is."

Coulson nods again. "I may be wary about what he's done to me, but yeah, I trust his judgement when it comes to picking his senior staff. Maria Hill's a very competent woman." He pinches the bridge of his nose, and Skye wonders if he's still tired, or merely stressed out – probably the latter. The thought of trying to find out what Fury did to him, or ordered to be done to him is probably eating away at him right now.

"Are you going to see Dr Streiten?"

"As soon as I can," Coulson agrees. "I'm hoping he's here at the Hub."

"You won't tell anyone you're going to see him, will you?" she asks, wondering if she's starting to sound paranoid.

He shakes his head. "Only you will know that."

"Good." 

The Bus settles down with scarcely a bump, and Coulson comes back around his desk to accompany Skye back to her bunk. 

"If Commander Hill – or whoever's doing the debriefing needs to see you personally, I'll come and fetch you," he says once they're downstairs. "Meanwhile try not to overdo it."

She nods, and watches him go, May and Ward trailing after him. She thinks about going down to the lab to join FitzSimmons, but decides, instead, to do her own research on Reinhardt – she's not sure how long Coulson's going to be, but she might as well make good use of her time until his return.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson returns to the Bus a couple of hours later; Ward and May are with him, and while May looks as inscrutable as ever, she thinks Ward looks testy, and she wonders why.

She's in the lab by this point, talking to FitzSimmons, or rather, listening to them bicker – Fitz is babbling on about the Night-Night guns, which Simmons wants to re-name as she thinks 'Night-Night gun' is a ridiculous name. Skye's inclined to agree with her friend, but is keeping silent on the matter since she doesn't want Fitz to think she's siding with Simmons.

"Boss man's back," she tells the scientists when she sees Coulson walking up the ramp. He's wearing his best neutral expression – it's not quite as inscrutable as May's, because no one does unreadable as well as May, but it doesn't matter, Skye knows him well enough to know something's annoyed him, and she guesses that he's found out that Dr Streiten is not currently at the Hub.

"How was the debriefing, sir?" asks Simmons brightly as Coulson enters the lab. The two senior agents are heading upstairs, Skye notes, but not together.

"About as tedious as you'd expect," he tells her. "However, I've got permission from Commander Hill for you to access Howard Stark's files on the Obelisk, and also Reinhardt's research. Here are the file details."

"Thank you, sir." Simmons accepts the slip of paper he passes her with an almost gleeful look.

Coulson turns to Fitz. "Agent Fitz, Commander Hill has asked me if you will please debrief her and some of the senior agents on the Night-Night guns. She's thinking about the possibilities of making them widely available to agents throughout SHIELD."

Fitz looks eager. "When does she wish to see me, sir?"

"In an hour."

"Excellent. I'd better start prepping right away."

"Skye." 

"AC." She looks up at him, taking in the stiffness of his posture, and asks, "Did you eat yet?"

He blinks at her, apparently thrown by the non-sequitur. "No."

"Then let me make you something," she suggests.

"All right." He grabs the handles of the wheelchair, and Skye calls an indiscriminate "Good luck" to FitzSimmons before he wheels her out and over to the elevator.

"Are you okay?" she asks softly once they're on their way up to the next floor.

"A bit fed up," he says.

"You missed Dr Streiten by a couple of hours," she tells him. 

He gives her a startled look. "How do you know?"

"C'mon AC, you guys have badges that you use to access secure areas, and to get in and out of the Hub. I checked the server and saw he'd badged out about two hours before we arrived."

He shakes his head slightly, but she can see he's amused, not annoyed. "I should've thought of that," he says.

"I didn't," she says honestly. "At least, not until you'd been gone an hour or so." 

He wheels her into the galley, and she gestures at the counter. "Sit down," she says. "Sandwich or omelette?"

He takes a seat, then gives her an appraising look. "Can you make a good omelette?" he asks, one eyebrow raised, a sceptical look on his face.

She mock-glares at him. "You're asking for it, Coulson," she says, and he holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I beg your pardon, Skye," he says, his tone formal.

She shakes her head, then wheels herself to the fridge and begins taking out the things she'll need. 

"What did Commander Hill have to say?" she asks, pushing herself up out of the wheelchair.

"Skye!" He sounds thoroughly alarmed, and she glances over her shoulder at him.

"Relax, Phil," she says. "I can do this."

He gets to his feet and comes to lean against the counter near where she's preparing her ingredients.

"Commander Hill?" she reminds him, and turns away from him to concentrate on her task.

"She thinks we should Slingshot the Obelisk."

"What does that mean?" she asks.

He explains, watching her intently – she can feel his eyes on the back of her head as she cooks a ham and mushroom omelette for him.

"We can't Slingshot it," she says, when he's finished.

"Why not?"

"We haven't finished with it. Besides, it's got an alien intelligence within it – if we do as Commander Hill wants, we'd be committing murder."

She puts the omelette on a plate for him, along with a serving of salad vegetables she found in the fridge, and carries it over to one of the islands for him. "Do you want a drink with that?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "Just some water, please."

She nods, and fetches him a bottle, bringing one for herself as well. She sits beside him, leaving the wheelchair over by the counter.

"When did you start walking about?" he asks, before taking a mouthful of the omelette. His eyebrows go up and he gives her an approving look, so she smirks at him.

"This afternoon," she says. "I got bored in the wheelchair, so I decided to try getting up. Simmons warned me not to try anything strenuous yet – no climbing and no running."

"Did she have any further ideas on why you're healing so fast?"

"No. She remains baffled. Apparently that's a scientific term." He chuckles and she grins at him. "That's better," she tells him. "You don't look quite so stressed now."

He gives a little shrug as he eats. "That's you," he tells her. "You are so optimistic and upbeat."

She rolls her eyes. "Eat your food."

He smirks at her, and she takes a swig of water, then she asks, "What are you going to do about finding Dr Streiten?"

"I'm going to visit him at his home. I'll leave in a little while and hope to catch him before he goes out for the evening, assuming he's the sort to do so."

"You will be careful, won't you?" she asks. 

He nods, and she's relieved to see he doesn't look annoyed by her concern. "Has Simmons had much luck with her archive searches?"

Skye shrugs. "She wasn't saying much, but I gather Reinhardt's researches were rather inconclusive – probably because he wasn't one of the 'worthy'." She looks at him pensively and he lifts an eyebrow.

"I was thinking that maybe I should try using it again." When he opens his mouth to speak, she holds up a hand. "Controlled tests, I'm thinking about – in the lab with FitzSimmons to keep an eye on things."

"I'd want to be there, too," he tells her.

"Of course." She'd expected him to say that and had no intention of arguing.

"Did you speak to Simmons about this?"

Skye shakes her head. "Thought I'd run it past you first."

He finishes his food. "Well, yes – it seems as sensible a way of finding out more about the Diviner as anything else I can think of. Do you know if Simmons found out anything about your mother apparently not ageing?"

"If she did, she didn't tell me." She looks at him carefully. "Does it bother you? The fact that you'll age, and I won't."

He shakes his head. "Not something I've given much thought to, so far."

"Do you regret this?"

He frowns. "Regret what?" He looks genuinely puzzled, she thinks.

"Meeting me. Us becoming lovers. Us being soulmates."

He reaches across the table and takes her hands in his. "Skye, I love you. I know we haven't known each other for very long, but I fell in love with you pretty much instantly. I cannot regret one minute of knowing you."

She twists her hands around to lace her fingers through his. "Thank you. I love you, too." 

He nods. "I know." He slides his hands free. "I need to leave soon, or I may not catch Dr Streiten tonight."

She slides off her stool and wraps her arms around him. "I'll be waiting for you."

He kisses her deeply, leaving her body aching with need. "That's to keep you going until I get back," he says, smirking.

"You'd better get going, then," she says. "Sooner you're gone, the sooner you'll be back."

"Very true." He starts to walk away, then turns and looks back at her. "Don't overdo it while I'm gone. I don't plan on letting you get much sleep tonight."

She laughs, startled by the promise. "Get outta here, Phil."

He touches two fingers to his temple in a sketchy salute, then strides out, and Skye sets about clearing up. She hopes he's not going to be gone more than a couple of hours – but however long he's gone, it's going to seem too long after that kiss and that promise.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: torture.

Coulson decides he's not going to take Lola – he doesn't want anyone to know he's visiting Dr Streiten after all, and while Lola's a fabulous car, covert she is not. Instead he borrows one of the SHIELD pool cars, and drives out of town to where Dr Streiten has a very nice house. It takes him a little over an hour, and he finds he's calculating how long it'll be before he's back at the Hub, back aboard the Bus, and able to keep his promise to Skye. He's also thinking about telling the rest of the team that he and Skye are soulmates – he's beginning to think it's unfair to the others to keep that information to themselves. Of course May already knows, and he recalls that he kissed Skye in front of Simmons, so she's probably realised there's something going on between them. He doesn't think Fitz will be too bothered, but he has to admit that he doesn't anticipate Ward being happy with the news. For all that the younger man is a part of his team, he still has a Specialist's attitude to a lot of things, and Coulson suspects there might even be an element of jealousy involved – he hasn't forgotten Ward's comments about Skye that first day that Coulson met her.

He's thinking about the possibility of taking Skye out to dinner again, somewhere really nice this time, as he pulls up outside Dr Streiten's house. He notes the surgeon's own vehicle is parked outside, and that makes him optimistic of finding him at home. He feels a combination of excitement and apprehension at the thought of getting answers from the other man about what Fury had had done to him, and he climbs out of the SHIELD car with only half his attention on his surroundings.

It's that lack of attention, of course, which gets him into trouble, and allows an unknown assailant to knock him over the head before he can get much further that Dr Streiten's gate.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

It's getting late and Skye's starting to feel antsy at Coulson's continuing absence. She'd expected him to be back at least an hour ago, but he's not returned, and when she checks, she finds he's not in the Hub either (it had occurred to her that he might have brought the pool car back then got waylaid before he could come back to the Bus). She has sent him a text, which has gone unanswered, and is just contemplating calling him, when Fitz asks, "Who's that?"

She and Simmons both look up from the other side of the lab bench at which they're all sitting and they see a tall, dark-skinned young man walking up the ramp. Skye feels a sudden sense of foreboding at the sight of him, although she can't think why, and she starts towards the doors of the lab, passing through them just as May comes down the spiral staircase.

"Agent May?" asks the young man.

"Yes." She frowns at him. "Agent Triplett, isn't it?" He nods. "What can we do for you?"

"Is Agent Coulson here?"

Skye bites her bottom lip, her sense of dread increasing at his question.

"No. I believe he went out to see someone." She glances over at Skye and she nods back.

"I think he may be in trouble," Triplett says.

Skye gasps, as May asks, "What makes you think so?"

"I believe my SO has abducted him."

"What?" demands May, sounding startled. "Who's your SO?"

"Agent John Garrett. He's been behaving very oddly the last couple of weeks. Keeps sending me off on spurious errands which I get the impression are designed to get me out of the way for some reason. He and I have been staying in a local safe house, and tonight he sent me out to meet a contact of his – or so he claimed. But no one showed up at the rendezvous he'd given me. I waited half an hour, then drove back to the safe house, and as I was arriving back there, I saw another Specialist leaving."

"Did you recognise him?" asks May immediately.

"Yes ma'am. It was Agent Grant Ward. I waited in the car, then five minutes later Agent Garrett left, and I followed him across town to the house of a Dr Streiten. I parked down the street a ways because I didn't want him to spot the car and make me. About ten minutes after Garrett and I arrived, Agent Coulson turned up." 

"Then what?" asks Skye, breathless with anxiety now.

"Garrett knocked him down and out." Triplett looks as if he can't believe what he's saying. "Then he dragged Agent Coulson into the back of the car."

Skye exchanges a startled look with May, then the older woman turns on her heel and hurries up the stairs to the bunks. Skye's close on her heels, with Agent Triplett right behind her, and FitzSimmons are following him.

"Ward!" shouts May in a very peremptory voice.

He appears in the galley: Skye sees him straighten up and slide something into his pocket, and she suddenly suspects that he'd bugged the galley, and she wonders where else he's put his bugs.

"Agent Coulson's missing," May says, "possibly abducted by Agent Garrett. Agent Triplett says you might know something about that."

Ward folds his arms across his chest, then leans back against the counter behind him. "Why would John Garrett abduct Agent Coulson?" he asks, his voice a lazy drawl.

"You tell me, "May says, crossing her own arms over her chest. Her feet are spread evenly, and Skye reckons she isn't half as relaxed as she wants to appear. Beside May, Agent Triplett looks cool, yet she can see the tension in the set of his shoulders.

"Can't tell you, I'm afraid," Ward says. "It's not my place to spill John's secrets." 

Skye feels the tension between the three senior agents ratchet up, but she's not sure why, exactly, until May says, "Your loyalty should be to Agent Coulson now you're a part of his team."

Ward chuckles, but it's an ugly sound. "I've _never_ been a part of this team," he says in a flat voice. "Sure, Coulson might've thought he could make me a part of his merry band of misfits and outcasts – " He directs his gaze at Skye on the last word and she feels a surge of anger, "but the truth is, John's always had my loyalty. His wishes, his desires, his orders – they'll always come first."

The last few words are barely out of his mouth before Triplett is charging across the galley with a roar of anger, and Ward is already moving to meet the other agent before May can shout "Triplett, don't!"

Skye can barely make out what's going on as the two men fight with a speed of movement and ferocity of action that leaves her head spinning. 

"Fitz, get me a Night-Night gun, now," May orders, and the younger man is already running for the stairs down to the lab. 

Simmons is holding Skye's arm, and it takes her a moment to realise that her friend is restraining her, and that cools Skye's burning rage somewhat. Just as Fitz returns with the Night-Night gun – a pistol variant that's much smaller and more useful, according to Coulson – Triplett manages to knock Ward down, and May, who already has the gun in her hand and is moving forward, immediately takes advantage, and shoots Ward so that his attempt to get up is arrested, and he falls back to the floor.

"Agent Triplett," begins May.

"Trip to my friends," says the other man.

"Trip, take him to the holding cell. Fitz, show him where it is, please." May turns to Skye and Simmons. "Skye, you're with me."

Trip hauls Ward up from the floor, slinging the other man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and Fitz leads the way towards the holding cell.

"What shall I do?" asks Simmons. 

"Check Agent Ward doesn't have any serious injuries from the fight," May says. "He'll need to be interrogated, and we might even need him for a bargaining chip with Garrett. Tell Trip that I said he was to stay in the cell with you while you're examining Agent Ward. Under no circumstances is he to leave you in there alone."

Simmons nods, then goes off after the three men.

Skye looks at May, who stares straight back at her. "I need to know why Phil went to see Dr Streiten," she says, "and then I need to report Coulson's absence to Commander Hill."

May starts to walk away, and Skye follows. Her heart is still thumping madly, she notices, and she feels breathless with anxiety.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

When May contacts Commander Hill's office she's told that the Agent left a couple of hours earlier to go to the Triskelion near Washington, DC. 

"I spoke to Agent Hand," May tells them. They're gathered around the holo-table in the command centre, Trip too, and Skye's sense of dread has, if anything, intensified in the last forty minutes. 

"What's Agent Hand doing?" asks Trip.

"She says that SHIELD has a lead on a Mr Vanchat who apparently deals in alien tech. She believes he's been supplying Centipede with Chitauri scrap metal for the serum injection devices. She reckons that if they bring in Vanchat, he'll be able to lead us to Garrett, and also to Coulson."

"Sounds to me like she's not really prioritising Agent Coulson's rescue," Trip observes in his calm tones.

"That was my thought also," says May.

"I gave SHIELD that lead about Vanchat a few days ago," Skye tells May, wondering why they've taken so long to do anything about bringing Vanchat in. She shakes her head. "I say we let Agent Hand concentrate on chasing after Vanchat, and we go after Garrett ourselves."

"Agreed," say May and Trip together.

"What do you propose, Skye?" asks Trip.

"Since we already know Garrett didn't take AC back to the safe house where you were staying, he must have a base of operations somewhere else, which we need to find. I think the easiest way to do that is to track his financials."

"Can you crack them?" May asks.

Skye nods. "I don't know how long it's gonna take, because it depends on how devious he's been about hiding things – could be just a couple of hours – but if Garrett's as devious as I suspect, it will probably take much longer."

May nods. "Can we help?" she asks, gesturing around the table.

Skye shakes her head. "You're not hackers, so it's down to me."

"What are the rest of us going to do?" asks Simmons.

"I'll ask Agent Hand if there's any help we can give to her teams," May says, "otherwise we'll just have to wait until Skye needs us to go and rescue Coulson."

"I take it Ward won't simply tell us where Garrett's likely to have taken Agent Coulson?" Fitz asks suddenly.

"I already asked." May's grim tone tells them that she didn't get a satisfactory answer out of their former team mate.

The others drift away, leaving Skye working at the holo-table. She's already got Garrett's bank account open and is searching for any hints as to where he might have taken Coulson.

By the time Coulson has been missing six hours, Vanchat is in SHIELD custody and is being interrogated by May at Agent Hand's request; FitzSimmons are in the lab with Trip, refining a new method of delivery for the Dendrotoxin drug that they intend to use on the Centipede soldiers; and Skye is still in the command centre, burrowing ever deeper into Garrett's financial records. She's discovered that he's every bit as devious as she had anticipated, and it's taking her far longer than she likes to find the answer she needs. 

AC-S-AC-S-AC

An astringent chemical smell brings Coulson abruptly back to consciousness, and he snaps open his eyes, but his surroundings make little sense to him: green walls; a mannequin in a full suit; an Asian man – a Centipede soldier, he thinks. Then a voice he recognises, but can't immediately place because his head feels as if it's underwater, speaking to him:

"It seems you passed out."

Coulson rolls his head sideways, becoming aware that he's lying down, strapped to some sort of medical scanner, and sees a face he knows.

"Garrett? What are you doing here?" Not that he knows where 'here' is, but the presence of John Garrett, Agent of SHIELD and his one-time mission partner, seems particularly apposite. Garrett's sitting in a comfortable-looking leather chair, sipping Scotch from a cut-glass tumbler, and looking very relaxed. 

"Now maybe you're ready to share what memories you're seeing?" asks Garrett.

Coulson frowns, breathing heavily. "What's happening?" he asks, his voice raspy, as if he's spent hours screaming.

Coulson can feel blood trickling from his nose, and his body aches like he's been pounded, but he thinks he could fight if he had to.

"What do you remember seeing just now, Phil?" asks Garrett.

Coulson's not sure why he feels suspicious of Garrett, but he does. He seems to have a gap in his memory of recent events.

"I see Jordan hitting that game winner over Russell in the '98 finals," Coulson says, picking something at random to tell Garrett until he's got a better read on the situation in which he finds himself.

Garrett looks disgusted, as if he knows Coulson's lying. "Phil Coulson, you're wasting my time. But we're gonna turn the machine back on and open up your mind. It's time to stop fighting it. If you don't, you won't survive the process."

Well that clarifies some things – he's right not to trust Garrett, clearly, although he still doesn't know what's happening.

"I'll let you kill me before I give you anything," Coulson tells him defiantly. He's just realised that Garrett must be the SHIELD traitor, the one Raina had called the Clairvoyant, and that Garrett wants him to remember whatever it is that Fury's made him forget, whatever it was that helped him to survive his fatal encounter with Loki. There's no way in hell he's going to help Garrett to make the super soldiers immortal.

The next few hours aren't pleasant – in fact, he would have to categorise them as torture. Coulson doesn't know exactly what Garrett's machine does, but he doesn't need to – all he needs to do is ensure that he doesn't relax, doesn't try to remember that odd blank period between getting stabbed and getting a massage in Tahiti.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Skye's just hit another brick wall in her digging when it feels as if someone's hit her, if not with a brick wall, then something equally painful. A sharp stabbing pain in her skull makes her scream in agony, and then she's on the floor, convulsing violently. She's barely aware of the babble of voices as FitzSimmons and Trip rush into the command centre and across to where she lies. Simmons kneels beside her, and for a little while Skye loses consciousness. When she comes to again, after what feels like half a lifetime, but is probably only a few minutes at most, she finds that she's lying in the recovery position. She can vaguely make out Fitz shouting, he's arguing with someone, and after a moment she realises he's trying to get hold of May. 

"She needs to get back to SHIELD 616 immediately," Fitz says, his tone more forceful that Skye's ever heard it before.

"What happened?" Simmons asks her, and she focuses her attention on her friend.

"He's torturing Coulson," Skye answers, wondering if he's already dead.

"How can you tell?" asks Trip, sounding bemused.

"We're soulmates," she tells him, and sees him cast a look at Simmons, who nods.

"How does being soulmates lead you to know that Garrett's torturing Agent Coulson?" asks Trip in a sceptical tone.

"A psychic bond," she tells him, then pulls herself up into a sitting position.

"I'm not sure you should be moving yet," says Simmons anxiously.

"Have to," Skye tells her. "He's _torturing_ Coulson. We have to find him."

"I think I should – " 

"No." Skye cuts her friend off abruptly without apology. "Whatever medical tests you want to run will have to wait. Don't you understand? Garrett is torturing the man I love. I _have_ to find him."

"But – " begins Simmons again.

"Better leave it for now, Jemma," advises Trip quietly.

At this point May comes hurrying in, and immediately wants to know what's going on. Skye explains succinctly, then Simmons tells May that she wants to sedate Skye.

May shakes her head. "Skye's our only real hope of finding where Garrett's taken Coulson." She stares at the younger woman for several long moments, then adds, "If Skye says she can cope, I believe her."

"Thank you, Agent May," Skye says quickly, very grateful. She can see from May's expression that the older woman understands there's more than one reason for Skye's urgency.

It's not that Skye doesn't understand Simmons' concerns, but she knows that she needs to find Coulson – and that she's the only one who can.

"Did Mr Vanchat give you any useful intel?" she asks May.

The older woman shakes her head. "Not on Garrett at any rate – he didn't even know that Garrett was the one in charge of the Centipede Group."

"Do you think it's worth asking Ward what Garrett has planned for Agent Coulson?" asks Trip. "It might give us a better idea of how much more Skye will have to deal with if she and Agent Coulson are psychically linked."

"I suppose we can ask him," May says, "but I'm not sure he'll tell us."

"Please ask him, Agent May," says Simmons. "I am responsible for Skye's health and well-being after all."

May nods. "Very well. Trip, will you come with me? It's possible Ward won't talk to me, but may talk to you."

Trip nods. "Of course."

Skye wonders whether Ward will talk to either one of them, especially since May doesn't seem to be making any attempt to hide her contempt for Ward. Before she leaves, May looks from Skye to Simmons, then says, "Don't leave Skye on her own."

Simmons practically bristles with indignation at the suggestion. "I wouldn't – " she begins, and Skye interrupts.

"Jemma, any chance I could have some painkillers, please? I'm getting a headache."

As she'd anticipated, Simmons' attention is immediately diverted from May, who gives Skye a rather amused look.

"Of course," says Simmons immediately. She turns to Fitz and requests that he keep an eye on Skye while she goes to fetch the painkillers, and May and Trip follow her out of the command centre.

Skye's attention is already back on her task, and she barely acknowledges Simmons when her friend returns with the painkillers, though she swallows them gratefully.

Later she's vaguely aware that Fitz has gone back to the lab following a whispered conversation with Simmons, and that the latter has settled herself in a corner with a tablet, but most of her attention is on wading through Garrett's layers of security.

She has finally broken through to a series of transactions for Centipede that's hidden behind several layers of encryption when the second violent spike of pain hits her, causing her to black out completely.

She comes around just as Simmons is once again begging May to let her sedate Skye.

"Don't," Skye says immediately. "I'm close to finding answers."

May crosses the room, and helps Skye up from the floor with a gentleness that surprises her.

"How close?" she asks, steadying Skye with an arm around her shoulders.

"Very close," she tells May. "Two, three hours tops."

"Very well." May turns back to Simmons. "We can't sedate Skye until she locates Coulson. Ward – " She stops, her mouth twisting with anger.

"What did Ward say?" asks Fitz anxiously.

"Apparently Garrett's got some sort of memory machine – it stimulates theta brainwave frequencies. It'll enable Coulson to remember things he's forgotten – but if Coulson fights his returning memories, he'll die – horribly."

Skye pulls away from May and leans on the holo-table, fighting nausea. She feels weak and shaky after this second spike of pain, but there's no way she'll give up on finding Coulson now.

"I'll be up in the cockpit," May tells them. "The Bus is refuelled and prepped – we're ready to take off at a moment's notice, just as soon as we've got a destination."

Skye nods, her attention already turning back to her task. She ignores FitzSimmons and Trip, who are sitting huddled in the corner, talking in low voices.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

After several hours, Garrett orders a break, and two more Centipede soldiers unstrap Coulson's arms and ankles, and haul him off the machine, before dragging him along a dingy, featureless hallway, and through a door into a room containing a bed, a chest of drawers, and, strangely, a metal trolley, on the top of which is a collection of implements, probably surgical, but definitely capable of being used as torture devices, or weapons.

Coulson deliberately falls across the trolley, and grabs a pair of tweezers which he then secretes inside his shirt sleeve. The two men drag him away from the trolley and bundle him onto the bed, handcuffing his wrists to a chain that's attached to the metal frame at the foot of the bed. He waits for them to leave, then extracts the tweezers from his sleeve and proceeds to unpick the lock on the handcuffs.

He wishes they hadn't taken his jacket and tie, but there's nothing he can do about that at the moment. He just has to hope he can find them again before he leaves here as he'll need his wallet and phone to escape from wherever here is.

An hour passes before he hears the door of his room opening again and a single pair of footsteps enters the room. He lies perfectly still, waiting patiently for the man as he crosses the room to the chest of drawers near the bed, underneath which Coulson's currently lying concealed.

On the bed, completely hidden by the tatty blanket, lies a mannequin dressed in a nurse's uniform. As the man drags the blanket aside, Coulson kicks out from under the bed, smacking his foot into the man's ankle, and felling him instantly. Coulson immediately rolls out from under the bed and wraps an arm around the man's throat in a stranglehold. The man struggles against Coulson, but he doesn't stand a chance against the desperation that's fuelling Coulson at this moment. Despite being weakened by the torture that's been inflicted on him, Coulson is strengthened by his fear, and once the man stops struggling, Coulson scrambles to his feet, then runs to the back of the house, away from the room containing that hateful machine.

Coulson bursts out of a door at the back of the house, onto a veranda, then stumbles to a stop as he takes in the sight that confronts him – a bunch of derelict buildings are scattered about, and a number of mannequins, both adult and child-sized, all of them dressed in outfits from the forties, standing in random positions.

"The town that the bomb forgot," comes Garrett's voice from nearby, and Coulson turns to see the other man sitting casually on the railing around the veranda, eating an ice-cream cone. "It was built in the forties for nuclear testing, but when the Cold War ended, the town was spared.

"Not exactly prime real estate," Coulson quips.

"True," agrees Garrett. "There's nothing but desert for hundreds of miles around, but I really like it."

Coulson begins moving towards Garrett, who's not even looking at him.

"It's nice here," Garrett tells him, and Coulson can't help wondering if the other man hasn't gone crazy. He rushes towards Garrett, but a Centipede soldier appears from around the corner of the house, and grabs Coulson by the throat, effectively stopping Coulson in his tracks. The man lifts him up off his feet, one-handed, and without any obvious effort.

"Shall we get back to it, then?" Garrett asks as Coulson clutches at the soldier's wrist with both hands, trying to pull the soldier's hands free so he can breathe.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

It takes Skye another four hours, not two or even three, for her to discover that a few weeks ago Garrett had bought a deserted post-war town out in the Mojave Desert. She'd been slowed down by two more pain spikes, one of which caused such a severe blackout that it was twenty minutes before Skye came around again, and this time she can tell that even May's worried about her, although she still doesn't argue when Skye insists on continuing.

"I think you should go and get some rest now," Trip tells Skye once May's got them in the air. He looks at Simmons for corroboration, but she just shrugs.

"No doubt Skye will do whatever she thinks best," Simmons says.

This irritates Skye, even though she understands her friend's frustration. "I did what I had to do. I was the only one who could find Coulson. How can you even think I'd put my health and well-being before his, knowing he was being tortured?"

"Hey, hey," Trip says in his soft voice. "Jemma understands that, don't you Jemma?"

She nods, and Skye realises her friend's close to tears, and her anger softens as she moves over to hug her.

"I'm sorry I worried you," she says.

"I'm sorry I got mad at you," Simmons answers, and Trip chuckles.

"You're quite the pair," he says, and the two young women simultaneously turn and stare at him, which just makes him chuckle even more. 

"I do think you should go and get some rest," Simmons says. "It's going to be at least a couple of hours before we get there."

"Yeah," Skye says, because she can't deny she's exhausted. It's not just that she's been on her feet for more than twenty-four hours, but also that breaking Garrett's encryption has been fiendishly difficult, and then she's also endured a lot of pain. She feels like her head's going to explode if she doesn't rest.

"I'll come with you," Simmons tells her ."Make sure you don't fall down on the way."

"Yeah," agrees Skye.

Simmons offers her something stronger for the pain, and after checking that she's not going to feel drowsy afterwards, Skye agrees.

Whatever it is that Simmons gives her, it knocks her out cold until Simmons wakes her when they're twenty minutes away from their destination.

"What was that you gave me?" Skye asks suspiciously.

"Just something for the pain," Simmons says, but she's got an anxious look in her eyes when she says it.

Since Skye feels better for her enforced sleep she decides not to push her friend for a more honest answer, and as soon as Skye's taken a quick shower and changed her clothes, she's ready. Then she thinks about Coulson who, like her, probably hasn't changed his clothes since he got up yesterday morning, and she goes to fetch a clean shirt and undershirt for him, folding them neatly before stowing them in her backpack.

They pile into the SUV, Skye up front with May, while Trip sits in the back with FitzSimmons. May has parked the Bus as close as she feels is consistent with convenience and not alerting Garrett or his people to their arrival. She drives fast and Skye does her best not to urge May to go any faster, although she's not sure how she restrains herself.

"Over there," Skye says abruptly as they come into the town square, for want of a better word. She points to one of the buildings, which has a veranda running all the way round it.

As soon as the SUV stops, a man appears from behind the building, and May and Trip are out of the vehicle before the other three can even move. As Trip goes for the Centipede soldier, May beckons the others forward, and Skye is right behind her as they rush across to the building Skye had pinpointed. Simmons is close behind them, carrying a First Aid kit, and Fitz is watching their backs.

Skye leads the way once they're inside the building since she can sense Coulson's pain like a homing beacon. 

"In here," she tells May as they reach the right room, and she steps to one side to allow May in first, just in case Garrett's armed and waiting.

Skye ignores both May and Garrett as she hurries straight across the room to where Coulson's strapped to a weird scanner. He screams as Skye approaches, and the wave of agony she feels echoed from him nearly floors her, but she stumbles forward, grabbing for Coulson's hands as she realises he's begging to be allowed to die.

"Coulson, Coulson." She calls his name again and again, trying to reach him in whatever place in his mind he's been trapped. She's crying now, and begging him to come back, willing him to be aware of her presence.

"Skye, Skye," he says at last, through his own tears, and somehow she manages to smile at him as she realises he's aware of her. He smiles back as she drips hot tears onto his hands and softly says his name again.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Back in the room with the machine, Coulson quickly finds himself being strapped down again.

"I think you need a little more persuading, Phil," Garrett says, nodding at one of his men, who pulls out an electric cattle prod, and proceeds to apply electrical charges to Coulson's ribs. He tries not to scream in agony, but he can't hold the cries in.

Garrett nods at the man, who withdraws a couple of paces, and Coulson lies there, breathing raggedly, before he glares up at Garrett.

"My team's gonna find me before you break me," Coulson tells him defiantly.

"Your team?" scoffs Garrett. "I doubt it. My boy's going to sort them out."

"Your boy?" asks Coulson, baffled and wondering who Garrett can be talking about.

The other man smiles maliciously. "Agent Grant Ward, Phil. He's been mine man and boy since he was a teen." His smile is nasty as Coulson feels a lurch of fear, then sheer horror, as the implications of Garrett's words strike him. Ward's aboard the Bus, with Skye and FitzSimmons, none of whom are combat capable, and May – and while he doesn't doubt that May can take Ward, it might be harder for her to do so with three non-combatants to protect.

"You know, this machine could help you, Phil." Garrett's tone is friendlier now, now that he knows Coulson will be worrying about the safety of his team.

"See, I know you've started asking for answers – and that you've realised that Fury's been covering up what happened to you. If you stop fighting the machine, we'll both get our answers."

"How?" asks Coulson, more to buy time than because he has any intention of helping Garrett to get what he wants.

"The machine induces theta brainwave frequencies," Garrett tells him, "that help uncover secrets buried in the subconscious. If you cooperate, you can surf those waves." He pats the top of the machine like another man would pat his dog.

"I've gone surfing," Coulson tells him. "That is definitely not like surfing."

"That's because you've been resisting, Phil. Fight the waves and you'll drown. Your brain will cook, you'll stop breathing – again." He raises his eyebrows at Coulson, who has never been more tempted in his second life than he is now. If he does comply, if he allows Garrett to use the machine on him, then at least he'll have answers to his own questions about what Fury did to him. And it occurs to him that Garrett will only know what Coulson chooses to tell him.

He looks up at the man whom he used to call a friend, and nods slightly. "Turn it on."

Garrett's grin is huge and manic as he seats himself at the computer controlling the machine.

"Close your eyes and relax, Phil," Garrett says in a genial tone. The machine above Coulson's head begins to hum, the note deepening and speeding up.

"I want you to think back to your first memory after you died," Garrett tells him. "What do you see?"

Coulson concentrates. "Sandy beach, blue waves, just as I remember it," he tells Garrett.

"Focus on the details," Garrett tells him.

_There's a woman massaging the back of Coulson's neck as a man walks up carrying a tray of drinks. "Don't stop," Coulson tells the woman._

_"Listen to him," says a harsh voice, and Coulson sees the young man with the drinks somehow morph into an older man in hospital scrubs – Dr Streiten, he realises._

_"Director Fury himself," says the woman in his memory, also transforming into someone older and wearing hospital scrubs._

"Something's happening, isn't it, Phil?" asks Garrett as Coulson feels his heart rate speeding up and his breathing become laboured. "I need you to look at your surroundings. Try and describe what you see." 

Garrett sounds excited, Coulson notes with a tiny, detached corner of his mind, as the rest of his attention focuses on the dark room in which his remembered self is lying – a surgical theatre, he realises. A sequence of images flows through his mind: his own hand, covered in blood from the wound in his chest; Fury looking determined; a body bag being zipped up over his face (and that he really doesn't understand recalling); a container of something green; weird symbols; stars; surgical implements being used on his body; and a strange robotic device doing inexplicable things to his exposed brain.

_"Can you feel that?" asks the woman in scrubs._

_"This is wrong," says Dr Streiten._

_"Don't! Stop!" begs Coulson, anguished._

_"Who ordered this?" demands Streiten._

_"Director Fury himself," answers the woman._

And now he knows. Coulson knows that he really did die, and that Fury had him brought back to life somehow, and then ordered that his memories be altered drastically to hide these facts.

_"Let me die, please," begs Coulson as the robotic device continues to work on his brain. "Please, I'm begging you, let me die."_

"Stop fighting it, Phil, stop fighting it," urges Garrett, sounding very distant, then Coulson screams in agony at the recollection of all that was done to him, everything that he'd been made to forget.

Coulson's barely aware of the door bursting open and May shooting Garrett, but he can hear Skye repeating his name again and again, her tone begging him to pay attention to her, and he feels hot tears splashing onto his hands, which she is clasping between both of hers, and then she's begging him, over and over, to come back, come back, as he begins to sob unrestrainedly.

"Skye," he rasps, then says it again, because he can't quite believe she's here. He tries to smile at her, and he can see she's trying to smile back, even though they're both crying.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and Skye get a little space to recover together before the action hots back up again.

Skye can't seem to let go of Coulson's hands, and she's grateful that Simmons seems to understand and does her best to work around Skye as she cleans the blood from Coulson's head, then applies an antibiotic swab and some stitches.

May and Trip have hauled Garrett out – not yet dead, but bleeding heavily – and Skye is grateful for the fact that Trip's also got medical training since it means Simmons can concentrate her attention on Coulson, while Trip deals with Garrett.

"Sir, I need to take off your shirt and t-shirt," Simmons says gently.

Coulson looks at Skye, and she squeezes his hands gently. "Do you want me to do it?" she asks in a hushed voice.

"Yeah."

He sounds so vulnerable that she has to bite her lip and will back any more tears. She releases his hands, then she and Simmons help him to sit up, before she unbuttons his shirt the rest of the way and eases it off him. Then she carefully rolls the undershirt up and off, biting back a cry of horror when she sees the bruises and burns that lie across his lower ribs. It's the first time she's seen his scar from Loki's spear, but she hardly gives it a second glance because she's so distracted by the damage Garrett had had inflicted on him by the Centipede soldiers.

"This will sting, sir," Simmons warns him, "but I need to clean these burns so they don't get infected."

Coulson looks anxious, and Skye says, "Let me," and takes the antibiotic spray out of Simmons' hands, directly a slightly apologetic look at her friend.

"Of course," Simmons agrees immediately, and Skye wonders if she's imagining the relief in her friend's voice as the young medic steps back.

Skye's careful as she cleans the burns, but she knows he's hurting still. She hasn't told him yet that she felt every moment of pain that Garrett had wreaked on him, and she rather dreads having that conversation with him, but as both May and Simmons had pointed out, it's not something she can keep to herself.

"That's better," she tells him, willing him to believe her, and he must do, because his muscles begin to loosen, and Simmons nods, her expression reassuring.

"I brought some clean shirts for you," Skye tells him, and he looks a bit surprised by that, but he doesn't ask her why, so she simply pulls them from her bag, then helps him into them. She's reminded of helping foster children younger than herself to get dressed when she was in her early teens.

"I'll go and find your tie and jacket," she tells him, certain he'll feel more himself once he's in his full suit.

"Thank you."

His voice is still hoarse and raspy-sounding, but he doesn't sound quite so broken. She nods at him before she goes out, casting a quick glance at Simmons, who gives her a brief nod back.

Skye runs into May on her way back, and the older woman looks less inscrutable than usual, or maybe, Skye thinks, she's just getting better at reading the agent's face.

"How is he?"

"Not too good," Skye admits. "Not too much physical damage – nothing's broken, at least – but there's a lot of mental agony, I'd say."

May nods. "Garrett's dying." Skye gives her a wide-eyed look. "Not from my shots," May explains. "He's got some sort of technological-medical device set up – I need Simmons to look at it, when you can spare her from Coulson."

"I'll send her out," Skye promises. It feels a little weird, still, to have May – who's a senior SHIELD agent after all – deferring to her, when she's not even a Level 1 agent, but she's getting used to it. She's not sure that's necessarily a good thing, but done can't be undone.

"Agent May needs you when you've finished treating Agent Coulson," Skye tells Simmons.

"There's nothing more I can do for you for the time being, sir. You need plenty of rest and sleep, and time to recover."

"Thank you, Jemma," he says, and Skye sees a flush of pleasure at his use of her first name colour her friend's cheeks before Simmons goes out, brushing her hand against Skye's shoulder as she passes.

Skye looks at Coulson carefully as he sits on the edge of the medical scanner. He looks slightly better, insofar as he's got a bit of colour in his cheeks now, and he seems to be sitting up a bit straighter than before.

"How do I look?" he asks.

"Oh, as Hollywood action man handsome as ever," she tells him teasingly, smirking when his eyebrows rise. "The stubble is definitely a good look on you."

He shakes his head slightly, then asks, "How did you find me? Garrett told me there was hundreds of miles of desert all round."

She nods. "We're in the Mojave Desert, actually."

"So how did you find me?"

"Well it seems that, for whatever reason – we're soulmates, I'm an 084, I used the Diviner – take your pick, but we've got a psychic bond."

His eyebrows go right up and his eyes widen. "A psychic bond?"

"Yeah," she says flatly.

"Can you explain that please?" His tone is a little plaintive, she thinks.

She explains briefly, about Trip's arrival at the Bus to tell them of Garrett's abduction of Coulson, and how he'd seen Ward leaving the safe house Garrett was staying in, which had led him to realise that Ward was Garrett's spy aboard the Bus. Then she described the subsequent fight between Trip and Ward, and how May had shot him with a Night-Night gun.

"You'd been missing a few hours when it started," Skye tells him. "Simmons thought I was having some sort of seizure, but I deduced that you and I have a psychic bond. Simmons wanted to sedate me – I was in rather a lot of pain, though I doubt it was nearly as much pain as you were suffering – but May agreed with me that I should keep searching for you."

"That's May," Coulson says. "Ever pragmatic."

"Yeah," Skye agrees softly, remembering May's expression. She had known that the agent understood Skye's desperate need to find Coulson, and fast, and not simply because what Garrett was doing to him was hurting her too.

"Trip didn't know where Garrett had taken you, but I was already looking at Garrett's financials, and after a lot of digging through layers of encryption I found out that he'd bought this place a few weeks ago, and given its isolation, May reckoned it was as good a place to look for you as any. She also reckoned that if you weren't here, I'd know that we were flying away from you instead of towards you."

"Thank you for finding me," he says quietly, reaching towards her.

She steps between his knees, and carefully wraps her arms around him. "I'm just sorry we didn't get here any sooner, Phil," she whispers.

"How long has it been? I've completely lost track of time."

"Nearly twenty-four hours since Garrett abducted you," she tells him, "and eighteen since he started torturing you."

He shakes his head, as if he can't process it, then kisses her briefly. "Thank you," he says again.

May comes in. "Garrett's dying," she tells them. "Says he wants to talk to you, Phil."

"You don't have to go," Skye says immediately.

"I think you should," May says. 

Coulson nods. "I think I should too." He gives Skye an apologetic look. "We were friends for a long time."

"I understand." She and May help him down off the scanner, then they make their way into the room across the hall where May and Trip had carried Garrett after May shot him. He's stretched out on a bed, and Skye gasps in shock when she sees the metalwork on his torso.

"What happened to you, John?" asks Coulson, his voice soft, and Skye gives him a sharp look, before turning away. She reminds herself that these two men have been comrades in arms for a long time, and she cannot judge Coulson for still feeling some friendship for the other man. After all, she's never had a friendship that's lasted more than a few years.

"I'm dying," Garrett says. "Only the Centipede serum's been keeping me alive the last few months. If I could've found out what had brought you back to life, I'd have used it to save my own life – but I couldn't find out in time."

From the corner of her eye, Skye sees Coulson shake his head. "You should've accepted your fate."

"Why?" snarls Garrett. "You didn't."

" _I_ didn't have a choice," Coulson says angrily. "I was begging them to let me die – that's one of the memories you've given me back today. I wanted to die after they brought me back, but they wouldn't let me." 

Skye pushes her fist against her mouth to keep herself from crying out at this revelation. She wants nothing more than to throw her arms around Coulson and hold him, but she refrains, waiting for him to finish talking to Garrett.

"Do you know what brought you back?" Garrett asks.

Coulson nods. "I do. But it won't do you any good. I've no idea where to find it. You're finished Garrett. Goodbye."

He turns on his heel, reaches for Skye's hand, and then walks away. Garrett calls after them, but Coulson keeps walking, and Skye has no intention of not going with him.

They walk outside together, and then Coulson seems to run out of energy, and she guides him down to sit at the top of the steps that lead up onto the veranda.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, wrapping her arms around him.

"You've nothing to be sorry for, Skye," he tells her as he slides his arms around her in turn.

"I have. I'm sorry I couldn't find out where you were sooner. If we'd got here sooner, you wouldn't know what Fury had done to you."

"But I wanted to know," he says, his voice muffled by her neck. "I was desperate to know."

"Do you think it'll help, knowing?" she asks softly.

He sits up. "I don't know," he says with a sigh. "Maybe?"

May and Simmons appear, followed by Trip and Fitz. "Garrett's dead," May tells them. 

"And the other Centipede soldiers who were here?"

"Also dead," Trip confirms.

"Then let's get out of here," Coulson says, and Skye thinks how utterly exhausted he sounds.

"Want me to torch this place?" asks Trip.

Coulson looks startled by the suggestion, then nods. "Yeah. It's no use to anyone else."

"What about the memory machine?" asks Simmons.

"I never want to see that thing again," Coulson tells her with a shudder.

"Agent May, why don't you get Skye and Agent Coulson back to the Bus, then come back for the rest of us? That way we don't have to all try to squeeze into the SUV."

"Good suggestion, Trip." May helps Skye to get Coulson to his feet, and they lead him across to the SUV, and he clambers up into the back, and Skye joins him.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

After Coulson submits his reports to Commander Hill regarding Garrett, Ward, and Centipede, he receives a copy of his complete file, which Director Fury has ordered to be released to him, although Coulson doesn't see the Director himself.

"Take some R&R, Phil," says Hill when she hands over the file. "Your team, too. Ten days leave for everyone."

"What about Agent Triplett?" he asks.

"Since you're down a Specialist, and his SO is dead, I see no reason he can't stay on the Bus with you, unless you or he are unhappy at that assignment?"

Coulson shakes his head. "We're good with it." He had already discussed it with Trip before coming in to see Hill.

Hill nods. "Go and find some place nice to relax, then," she says.

 _Gladly_ , he thinks, and walks out of her office, and then out of the Hub at a brisk pace, simply nodding acknowledgements to those who greet him – he has no intention of being held up.

Aboard the Bus he gives the team the news, and an animated conversation immediately breaks out between Trip and FitzSimmons as they discuss their options. 

He glances at May, who gives him a brisk nod. "See you in ten days," she says, and goes away to pack.

Coulson looks over at Skye, whose eyes are downcast, and it hits him that she has no one to visit. He moves over to her side, and with a gentle hand on her elbow, guides her away from the others.

"Where do you want to go?"

She gives him a startled look. "Where do I want to go?" she repeats.

He nods. "Yeah. I thought it might be nice for us to go somewhere warm, but if you don't fancy that – ?" He shrugs.

"Warm sounds good," she agrees. "Florida?"

He smiles. "Why not?" He finds himself picturing Skye in a two-piece swimsuit, and his smile becomes more of a smirk, and he sees her flush, as if she knows just what he's imagining. "Let me go and make a couple of calls," he says, "then we'll be out of here."

"Do I at least have time to pack?" she asks, wide-eyed.

" _If_ you're quick," he teases, and she giggles.

He hurries up to his office and arranges a ride for most of the journey to Florida, then calls the friend of a friend who agrees to let Coulson borrow his beach front villa for ten days, so long as Coulson restocks the cupboards and freezer with any food he uses.

He moves from his office into his room and grabs a case, and packs it rapidly: jeans, casual shirts, underwear, a pair of shorts, swimming trunks; he even digs out a pair of deck shoes, then he fills up his toiletries bag and adds that, before putting his file on the top.

Thirty minutes later he returns to the lounge and finds Skye already waiting for him, her backpack resting against her leg, and her laptop tucked under her arm. He frowns at the sight of it, then guiltily remembers his file in his case, and makes no objection. "Ready?"

She nods, and he glances around. "Trip and FitzSimmons left already. They said to have a nice time."

"Let's go, then." He grabs her free hand and she squeezes his fingers as they make their way downstairs.

"You already look better," she tells him.

"How so?" he asks curiously.

"More relaxed, less as if you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders."

"Well, I feel more relaxed," he admits.

Down in the hangar he pops Lola's trunk and stows away their bags, then they climb into the front seats. 

"Are we driving to Florida?" Skye asks.

He shakes his head. "Only the last part. I've arranged a ride for us for most of the way."

She nods, and he reverses down the cargo ramp, then rapidly turns the car through a one-eighty, before speeding across the airfield to where their ride is being loaded.

"Whereabouts are we staying when we get there?"

"I've borrowed a nice beach front villa for us," he tells her. "A friend of a friend owns it and has agreed we can use it for the duration. I could've booked us into a hotel somewhere, but I figured the villa would give us more privacy."

She smiles. "I don't mind where we stay, so long as we're together."

"Well, this is our first chance to be alone together, and I didn't want to waste it."

She squeezes his knee. "I like that. Thank you."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

There's a small passenger cabin on the freight plane they're riding across country, and since they're the only two passengers, they have it to themselves.

"I've got something to show you," Coulson tells Skye once they're in the air, and he pulls his file from his case.

"Is that – " she begins, then leaves the sentence hanging. "That's why you didn't object to me bringing my laptop."

"Yeah," he says heavily. 

"You're not gonna spend our whole holiday brooding over that, are you?" she asks.

He huffs a laugh. "Would you let me?"

"No." Her tone is very firm.

"Exactly. Anyway, I don't want to brood. I just want to find out what's in it that Garrett didn't know – according to Commander Hill, he didn't get everything."

"She knows that for a fact, does she?"

"Yup."

She nods. "When we get back, I want to go after Ian Quinn," she tells him, "and take down the rest of Centipede. Vanchat's intel allowed Agent Hand to close down a lot more of their labs, but I'm not convinced she got all of them."

"Why?" He puts his file on the seat on his other side and gives Skye his full attention.

"Well, for a start, Vanchat was just one cog in the machine – he supplied the Chitauri metal that was used to create the Centipede serum delivery devices, but one of Quinn's subsidiaries, Cybertek, deals in advanced technology and research – so they likely designed the serum delivery device itself. And Quinn's got his sticky fingers in a lot of pies. He finds brilliant people like Donnie Gill and Seth Dormer, and recruits them to his companies, then uses their talents to build dangerous technology. And all the time he's using them, he pretends to be a philanthropist."

Coulson grabs her hand and laces his fingers through hers as he hears the biting anger in her voice. "All right," he says. "After we get back, we'll sit down together and work out a way to capture Quinn, and take him down."

"Thank you."

"I'll even let you design the op," he says.

Her eyes widen. "Really?"

He nods. "Why not?"

"Well, I'm not an agent."

He snorts. "That hardly seems to matter any more. May told me how you took charge of the search for me after Garrett abducted me. You needn't worry, I won't leave you to cope on your own – you'll design the op, but you can ask me for input at any stage."

"Thank you." She leans over and kisses him. It starts out soft and sweet, but Coulson finds himself wanting more, and pretty soon Skye's in his lap, and he's kissing her like he never intends to stop.

They have to come up for air eventually, though, and they rest their foreheads together while they catch their breath.

"I thought you might need a few days to recover from what Garrett did to you," she says, sitting up and slinging her arms around his neck. "Guess I was wrong."

He chuckles. "You make me feel much better."

She shifts on his lap, making him groan. "I noticed," she teases. 

She's wearing a short red dress, which he's never seen before, and he can't resist sliding his hand up her leg to touch her.

"Is this a good idea?" she asks softly.

"I think it's a brilliant idea," he says.

She laughs. "What if someone comes in?"

He shrugs. "Doesn't seem very likely – this isn't a commercial flight, after all."

"So you're just gonna ravish me right here?"

She doesn't sound like she hates the idea, he thinks. "Would you like me to?"

"Mmm." She doesn't answer properly, just kisses him again, open-mouthed, and apparently intent on devouring him. He starts stroking her through her panties, and she moans, then pulls her mouth from his and he kisses her throat, scraping his teeth lightly over her skin.

"Skye." Her name is a sigh of pleasure as he slips his finger into her and finds her wet and warm.

"Phil." His name from her lips is a groan of desire that seems to go straight to his cock.

"Please, Skye." She climbs off his lap, then whips off her panties, passing them to him for safekeeping, and he thinks he might come at the very thought. He slips her underwear into his jacket pocket as she unfastens his belt and pants, then eases his cock free.

He slips forward in his seat and she climbs up onto his lap again, but facing him this time. She takes the condom he gives her and rolls it into place, then he holds her waist as she guides his cock into her, both of them moaning at the heat and friction.

"Fuck!" he whispers.

"Ready?" 

He can only nod, distracted by the way her pussy muscles are already tightening around him. "God, Skye."

She smirks at him, then lifts herself up until his cock almost falls out, before she sinks back down again. 

He thinks she's going to torture him by riding him slowly, but she picks up her pace quite soon, and he meets her downward motions with upward thrusts of his own. He doubts he's going to last long, but he figures that's as well, given just where they are doing this.

Afterwards, they settle back into their seats, with Coulson's file, reading different sections, and passing the pages back and forth between them. 

"You remember when you mentioned blue humanoid aliens, back when you used the Diviner?" he asks once they've finished reading.

"Yeah."

"When I was in that machine – when all the memories came flooding back – I saw a blue humanoid alien. It was at the medical facility where I was treated." He snorts. "Where I was operated on and brought back to life."

"What was it doing there?" she asks, her expression a mixture of concern and curiosity.

"I don't know," he tells her. "I only saw a brief glimpse – there were other things I saw as well, things which don't make sense now that I felt I was on the verge of understanding at the time I was in the machine."

"What sort of things?"

"Strange writing – sort of alien – it was like no writing I've ever seen on Earth. And there was a starscape – but I had the strangest idea it was not in our galaxy."

"Perhaps it was the home of the blue humanoid aliens," she suggests.

Coulson gives her a sharp look. "What makes you say that?"

She focuses her gaze, which had gone distant, back on him and she must see how agitated the idea makes him, because she intertwines her fingers with his, holding his hand very firmly.

"I'm not sure, really," she says, "it's just a feeling I have – perhaps a hold over from being connected to the alien intelligence inside the Diviner." She looks at him in sudden alarm. "Where is that thing?"

"Locked in my office safe aboard the Bus," he assures her. "Commander Hill hasn't requested that I hand it over, so I left it where I put it once we left Chinese airspace."

She nods, then relaxes in her seat, angling her body towards his, and he slips his arm around her shoulders. "I haven't given up the idea of investigating that thing further," she tells him.

He smirks ."I didn't suppose you had. You are a pretty tenacious kind of woman, Skye, as I've already learned."

"You mean I'm stubborn as a mule," she says. "That's what Sister Agatha always used to say." She straightens up in her seat, then gives him a very piercing look. "Mary Sue Poots, you are as stubborn as a mule, and contrary with it. The Lord knows why you've been sent to try us, but since you have, I will endeavour to make you less stubborn and contrary."

Coulson laughs softly at her impression, a faint Irish accent colouring her words.

"Sadly, Sister Agatha never did beat it out of me."

His laughter dies instantly. "Skye," he says, but she shakes her head.

"It's okay, Phil," she tells him. "It was a long time ago, and I hardly ever think about those days, not any more."

He reaches for her, and she snuggles up against him again. "I wish Agent Avery's protocol hadn't been necessary," he tells her, "even though I'm so glad it kept you safe and eventually brought you into my life."

She lifts her head from his shoulder and kisses him briefly. "What's done can't be undone," she tells him. "Let's just be grateful for what we've got."

He nods, then kisses her back.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

The villa, Skye thinks, is pretty fabulous. It's a sprawling two storey affair, with a large garden at the rear, and a long series of stone steps down onto the beach. The beach isn't busy – it's too late in the year for one thing, and for another, this stretch of coastline isn't open to the public, so there are no tourists to fill the place up.

It takes them a couple of hours to drive from the airfield where they were dropped off, and they stop on the way to buy groceries, and sun cream, and a large sunhat for Skye. It's a floppy pale red one that goes well with her dress, and she reckons it doesn't look too bad on her.

They unpack once they arrive, then Coulson changes into jeans and a casual shirt, and they wander down onto the beach for half an hour before returning to the villa to eat.

They have an early night because it's been a long trip, and the last couple of days have been exhausting for both of them. 

Skye had anticipated Coulson would have nightmares after his ordeal at Garrett's hands – although he'd been knocked out the night before because Skye had persuaded Simmons to give Coulson a dose of the 'painkiller' Simmons had given her – and so far as she knew, he hadn't dreamt at all last night. Tonight, though, Coulson wakes them both up around two in the morning, having a very violent nightmare that leaves Skye with a bruise on her bicep where Coulson, still dreaming, had reacted badly to her attempt to wake him. They spend a lazy day in the villa's garden, but a couple of hours after they go to sleep (after making love) Coulson has another nightmare, and this time he refuses to go back to bed. She doesn't argue with him, feeling that he's quite old enough to know what he wants to do, and if he wants to sit up for the rest of the night, it's his decision to make. 

On their third morning, however, Coulson's in a really despondent mood at breakfast time; he's bemoaning the fact that he's ruining Skye's holiday, and the fact that they can't sleep together since he can't seem to sleep without having nightmares. Skye's drinking strong coffee and waiting for him to calm down when she remembers something she learned many years ago.

She waits for Coulson to wind down, then says, "When I was eight, I was fostered by a really nice woman named Jenny, who was a child psychologist as well as a foster mother. While I was living there she took in a little boy named Tommy – he was only five, and he used to have awful nightmares that woke us all up – his new step-father used to beat him up, you see, and Tommy would dream the man was breaking into his room to beat him up some more."

She looks at Coulson over the top of her coffee mug, and sees he's listening intently, just as he always does.

"Eventually, though, Jenny cured him of his nightmares."

"How?" asks Coulson immediately.

"She persuaded him to try sleeping out in the garden at the back of the house during the day. She let Tommy choose a spot where he felt safe and comfortable, then gave him some blankets and pillows, and I helped him to make a – well nest, I guess, rather than a bed – and he'd sleep there for a few hours every afternoon, in broad daylight. After four or five days the nightmares stopped, and he felt safe enough to sleep in his own bed at night, although Jenny would always leave a light on for him in his room – just in case. She always said that waking in the dark made nightmares seem far worse."

"So, what, you think I should build myself some kind of nest and sleep during the day?" he asks.

She shrugs, ignoring his faintly sarcastic tone. "Gotta be worth a try, I'd say," she tells him. "After all, I can't think you'd sleep any worse, and you never know, you might sleep better for doing it in the daylight." She finishes her coffee. "You could try it after we've had lunch. Sleep on the beach, maybe?"

He looks thoughtful, then asks, almost shyly, she thinks, "Will you come with me?"

"If you want me to."

He nods. "Thank you." He reaches across the corner of the table and laces his fingers through hers, and she lets him hold her hand as they finish eating their breakfast. 

They spend the morning in the nearby town, wandering around the shops, and doing some grocery shopping. Skye takes a great deal of pleasure in holding hands with Coulson; he's wearing an open-neck casual shirt, shorts, and some deck shoes, along with his sunglasses, and she can't help thinking he looks pretty sexy. She will admit, if she's pushed, that she has a bit of a thing for his forearms – she loves seeing them uncovered – although if she's honest there isn't any part of Coulson that she doesn't appreciate. He's a very solid guy – compact, well-muscled, strong, fit, and absolutely sexy. He doesn't look fifty – at most he looks forty, and a very young forty at that.

They make their way home eventually and while Skye makes a Spanish omelette, Coulson prepares a ham salad for their lunch. After they've eaten and loaded the dishwasher, they gather up a picnic blanket and a couple of cushions from the garden chairs, and Coulson brings a beach umbrella, while Skye's got her laptop in her backpack, plus a couple of bottles of water.

She lets Coulson choose the spot on the beach that most appeals to him, then spreads out the picnic blanket while he puts up the umbrella. She gets the impression that he doesn't think he'll sleep, but less than an hour after he lies down, he's fast asleep, and she can't help smiling at the sight, particularly since he looks so peaceful.

She sits cross-legged beside him as he sprawls on his stomach, and works on her laptop. If he was awake, she wouldn't be doing this, since it is SHIELD-related work, and they're meant to be on holiday, but she's been thinking more about the Diviner, and she wants to find Werner Reinhardt, if she can, and the best way to do so, she reckons, is to use SHIELD's facial recognition software and search for him. So she's uploaded the photo of him from Agent Peggy Carter's days, and is now writing the code that will search for Reinhardt's face everywhere there's a camera, anywhere in the world.

She doesn't anticipate finding him quickly – it's a big old world, after all, but she believes they'll find him eventually.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

After sleeping on the beach during the afternoon on four days, Coulson's nightmares seem to ease off, and by the time they return to the Bus, he believes that they're gone for good. They begin working in earnest to find Ian Quinn, which is largely Skye's job since she's the only one who can hack through the layers of security on his transactions.

While Skye's busy with that, Coulson and the rest of the team take on a couple of small jobs; he doesn't want to tie them down with anything too complicated because he wants them to be readily available as soon as Skye gets the intel she needs.

More than a week's passed before Skye finally says triumphantly, "Got him."

"Good. Show me?" He gestures at the big monitor on his wall, and she nods, then taps at her laptop. An invoice appears, and he whistles softly when he sees the price tag: ten million dollars.

"What am I looking at?" he asks, coming around from behind his desk.

"It's a purchase Quinn made last week from Cybertek – the company whose building we raided in Hong Kong." He nods. "Well, they are shipping the item to Quinn – but they're sending it old-school – on a train through the Italian countryside." She taps at her laptop again, and more documents appear on the wall monitor. "This is the booking for Cybertek's security team. And this," she taps again, "is the list of people in that security team. They're all either former military or ex-mercs."

"That's a lot of people to shift one item," Coulson observes.

"Yeah, which makes me think that not only is it valuable in monetary terms, but that they're taking it directly to Quinn himself."

"So if we can get ourselves aboard the train, we can – what?" 

"Well, I was thinking we could put a tracking device on the package – and then follow it to its destination – which'd mean we could pick up Quinn and grab the package at the same time."

"Two birds with one stone," Coulson says, pleased. "Well done, Skye. You've done a great job."

"Well, we're not there yet," she tells him. "We need to work out how we're going to get the tracker on the package, and how to get around the security team, which bearing in mind that half of your team are non-combatants – it's not gonna be a walk in the park."

He puts his arm around her shoulders and tugs her close. "I have faith in you," he says. "I'm quite sure you can design an op that'll take advantage of everyone's strengths so that it won't matter than you and FitzSimmons aren't combatants."

"Thanks, AC."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and his team go after Ian Quinn. And Skye starts exploring her Diviner-given powers.

"Ian Quinn," Coulson says two days later, striding into the command centre with Skye at his heels; May, FitzSimmons, and Trip are already gathered around the holo-table. 

"You found him?" asks May.

"No, but we think we know how we can. Skye's tracked down an invoice from one of his subsidiary companies – he made a big purchase recently." He taps on the holo-table and various magazine covers, all showing Quinn, flick up onto the screen, then photographs of some of his known associates.

"Ten millions dollars big," Skye tells them.

"Any idea what it is?" asks Simmons.

"No clue, but it was designed and built by Cybertek – the company whose building we raided back in Hong Kong. They deal in advanced technology and research and, as far as I've been able to find out, they're the ones who built the Centipede devices for Garrett's super-soldiers."

"And this is where this gets interesting," Coulson tells them. "They've hired a private security outfit to transport the purchase – former military and ex-mercs."

"That's a lot of muscle to move one package," observes Trip.

"Exactly. And we intend to relieve them of it," Coulson tells him.

"They're transporting it old-school," Skye says.

"On a train through the Italian countryside from Verona to Zagreb." Coulson realises suddenly that he and Skye have apparently picked up FitzSimmons' habit of finishing each other's sentences, but he pushes the thought away. "Very rural, very isolated," he continues.

"And you think Quinn's on that train?" asks May.

"No," Skye says. "But we believe they're delivering the item to Quinn himself."

"We got some intel from Italian authorities, who've been monitoring the situation," adds Coulson.

"And they don't mind us taking over the op?" May sounds a little sceptical, understandably, since a lot of local authorities dislike it when SHIELD rolls into town.

"I intend asking very nicely," Coulson tells her. "I've got a meeting with Luca Russo tomorrow morning. If everything goes as planned, the Cybertek security team won't even know we were on the train."

"So we're going undercover?" Fitz asks.

May sighs. "I hate undercover."

Coulson smirks at her. "May and Trip, you're front and centre. Once we locate the package, you'll tag it with a tracker. Skye and Fitz will be running communications. After the package is tagged, we'll follow it to Quinn. Once we capture Quinn, we should be able to shut down Centipede completely."

"What about the two of us, sir?" asks Simmons. "I know I'm not very good at lying, but I want to help."

Coulson smiles at her. "Don't worry, Jemma. You'll be involved, too, and you won't have to lie much. You'll be playing my daughter."

Simmons frowns. "But you look much too young to have a daughter my age," she protests, then looks startled when everyone else laughs. 

Coulson blushes, especially when Skye leans in and whispers in his ear, "Much too young, and handsome, and virile."

"Skye," he admonishes her softly.

She gives him a look that seems to say that if they weren't in company right now, she'd kiss him at the very least.

"Be that as it may," he says, "that's how we're partnering up. We'll be boarding the train at lunchtime tomorrow."

"You're assuming that Russo will agree to your plan?" asks May.

"Why wouldn't he?" asks Coulson, smirking.

"Don't worry, Simmons, I'll help you prep for it," Skye tells the young agent.

"Thank you."

As May had suggested, Russo isn't exactly overjoyed at having the op taken over by SHIELD, but Coulson doesn't let the other man's hostility trouble him, and accordingly the six of them, in the three-person teams he'd outlined the day before, all board the train. May is in a long-suffering mood; Simmons is nervous; Fitz seems a little disoriented by not being partnered with Simmons; Trip seems not just relaxed, but to be positively enjoying himself. Skye, meanwhile, is more focused than he's ever seen her, and he's realised that stopping Quinn and taking down every last piece of Centipede has become something of a personal quest for her.

They had discussed it the night before, while lying in bed together:

_"Damn straight I want Centipede stopped," Skye said forcefully. "After everything they've done, especially to you, I want to see them destroyed. Quinn needs locking up for a very long time – he and Ward can rot in the Fridge together."_

_He lifted his eyebrows at her fierce tone. "You know, you're more than a little sexy when you're getting righteous."_

_Skye's eyes widened. "Is that right?" she asked, her tone playful. "How sexy?"_

_Coulson slid his arms around her as she lay on top of him, and rolled them over. "I'll show you, if you like."_

_"Mmm. I think I could live with that."_

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Sitting with Fitz in one of the carriages, Skye can't help slightly regretting the fact that she and Coulson are working separately from each other, but then she designed the op, more or less (Coulson gave her his input when she needed it, but she hadn't needed it much).

"Are you nervous?" Fitz asks.

She shakes her head because, surprisingly, she's not. "Just ready for this all to be over," she tells him. "I'm ready to get Quinn and dismantle Centipede."

"Me too," he tells her, then looks back over the top of his seat, before turning his attention back to Skye. "So, are we British or American?"

"Does it matter?" she asks, frowning. She hadn't bothered with a proper backstory for herself – unlike Simmons, she knows she's great at thinking on her feet and improvising.

"Well, we're travelling together, we should at least be from the same country. How's your Scottish accent?"

She frowns again. "I dunnae, you tell me how greet it is laddie." She pulls a dismayed face at Fitz as she realises how very bad that was.

"American then," he tells her, in a fairly good accent. "That's a better idea."

"Oh, that was really good," she tells him, amused.

"I used to watch a lot of American TV, growing up," he says, in his usual accent. "Some of it's quite good. Lots of nice teeth."

"Oh, here we go," Skye tells him, spotting the ticket collector coming down the aisle. "Follow my lead." She grabs a map and gets to her feet, moving towards the man.

"Excuse me. Do you speak English?"

"Of course," answers the man in Italian-accented English. "How may I be of service?"

"Can you recommend a restaurant in downtown Zagreb?" Skye asks him, moving much closer to show him her map. She's all charm and friendliness, and she can see the man's eager to help.

"Some place affordable with big portions," puts in Fitz, who's got to his feet and joined Skye.

"You are looking for something romantic?" asks the ticket collector.

"Yes please," agrees Skye enthusiastically. She grabs Fitz by the back of his neck and kisses his cheek sloppily, then giggles.

"We're celebrating our six month anniversary with a whirlwind trip all over Europe," she tells the man.

"Ah," says the ticket collector.

"Well, technically we met six months ago, but he didn't ask me out until last month, so our official one month anniversary isn't until next – "

"Sunday," Fitz chips in.

"Saturday," finishes Skye, and Fitz corrects himself.

She steps in closer to the ticket collector as she confides, "I think he found me intimidating." She carefully lifts the man's bunch of keys from his belt as the conductor remarks,

"Young love, so confusing."

"Is it?" asks Skye brightly, stepping back to Fitz's side.

A few minutes later, she unlocks the door of the baggage car with the keys she'd purloined, and she and Fitz make their way inside, ready to get the team's comms activated.

"You – uh – got a little flustered back there," she teases Fitz as he follows her through the door, then closes it.

"What, when you kissed me on the cheek like my grandmother? Good god, really selling our relationship there."

Skye settles on a stool at a hand table and pulls out her laptop. "Be fair, Fitz, I'm already _in_ a relationship, and while I'm not sure if Coulson's a jealous man, I don't want to cheat on him."

He frowns at her, then changes the subject entirely. "I have a device that could have done those things, broken the lock and all that," he tells her.

"What? Why wouldn't you tell me that?" she asks disbelievingly.

"I'm always the gadget guy. Maybe sometimes I want to do things with my bare hands."

"You _make_ the gadgets with your bare hands," she reminds him.

"Just allow me these rare moments of self-pity, okay," he says, unlocking the case he's taken from his huge rucksack. "You're the least supportive pretend girlfriend I've ever had."

Skye laughs, tapping away at her laptop. "Comms are live," she announces. "Coulson, Simmons, you in position?"

"Yes, just waiting on May's signal," Coulson tells her, relieved to hear her voice at last. While he hadn't doubted her ability to lift the ticket collector's keys – she had, after all, given him a practical demonstration of her ability to pick his pockets unnoticed when she'd first mentioned how she was planning to get into the baggage car – he'd still worried that something unforeseen might prevent them from making the baggage car their base.

He looks across at Simmons as he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket. "So remember, our target is Carlo – " 

"Mancini," says Simmons simultaneously, barely glancing at the photo on his phone. "The head of security, I know. I memorised his face. I memorised everything." She opens her large holdall and pulls out an expensive-looking funerary urn, then sets it on her knees as Coulson watches.

"What are you doing?" he asks, noticing Simmons' eyes are closed. 

She opens them again and looks over at him. "Oh, I'm getting into character. My undercover persona harbours residual resentment to her absent American father. Blames him for not being there when her mum died. So I apologise in advance if I come off a little cold."

Coulson's brows draw together as he asks, "Do you think all that backstory is necessary?" He knew that Skye had offered to help Simmons prep for the op, but hadn't expected this level of detail.

"Past events have shown me that I am not good at improvisation. However, I excel at preparation."

"He's headed your way." Fitz's voice comes over the comms and Coulson wishes it had been Skye, just for the sake of hearing her voice again. Then he mentally scolds himself. Ever since Garrett's torture of him, Coulson's found that he has a real weakness for Skye's voice – which is not very helpful.

He looks at Simmons. "You're on." He wonders just what's going to happen in the next few minutes.

"All mum ever wanted was your love," Simmons tells him, her voice slightly louder than usual. "To be with you in our two-storey Victorian home in the Cotswolds." Her voice is rising and people are beginning to look, and Coulson tries not to shrink back into his seat.

"But could you even give her a moment? What with your banking job requiring you to travel to the States from Tuesday to Saturday every other week?"

Coulson looks alarmed, glancing sideways at Simmons' audience, who are looking interested or repelled.

"No!" cries Simmons, sounding genuinely anguished now.

"I'm terribly sorry about your loss, dear," says an older man who's paused by their seats, two much younger women hanging onto his arms. "As for you," he continues, turning his attention to Coulson. "Now is your chance to do better. Why don't you see that you take it?"

Coulson smiles fixedly at the man as Simmons whispers a thank you to him. As the passenger moves away, Coulson gives Simmons a slightly baffled look. She might be terrible at improvisation, but she can act.

The passenger has left, and Simmons now gets to her feet, clutching the urn. This, Coulson knows, is the signal that she's spotted Mancini approaching. "He is right," she says, raising her voice again. "You never had any time for her, but you made time for your work and your prostitutes."

Coulson feels his mouth drop open, and he realises he can hear Skye giggling in the background via the comms.

Simmons starts to rush away from their seats, colliding artistically with Mancini, and spilling the ashes down his front and all over the carriage floor. She shrieks in horror as Coulson leaps to his feet, shouting, "Oh god!", and the nearby passengers watch with expressions of either shock or barely concealed amusement, according to their dispositions.

"Oh no!" cries Simmons, scrabbling at the ashes on the floor. "Mom?"

Mancini mutters something unintelligible, then gestures vaguely, before walking away through the spilled ashes.

"Terribly sorry," Coulson apologises generally, then kneels to help Simmons, asking, "Prostitutes? Plural?" in a low voice, to more giggling from Skye, whom he feels is having far too much fun at his expense.

He glances back down the carriage in the direction which Mancini's taken, then says, "May? Coming your way."

"Copy that." 

May, Coulson knows, is up on the roof of the train, wearing a set of infrared goggles Fitz has designed. They will allow her to follow Mancini's footsteps after he walked through the chemically-treated spilled ashes.

"Following the target to the package," May confirms.

 _So far, so good,_ thinks Coulson. He really hopes this op comes off after all the hard work Skye has put into it. She'd spent days tracking Quinn's various purchases, and hours more in designing the op, and he is even more convinced that she'd be an asset to SHIELD if she joined.

"Great," comes Skye's voice over the comms. "We see what you see."

"Cybertek cases are usually lined with Tungsten polymer to prevent scanning," says Fitz. "It should appear black on your infrared."

Coulson waits as patiently as he can, watching Simmons, who is looking at the passing scenery.

"Bingo," calls Fitz after a few minutes. "Uh, eyes on the package, fourth seat from the back of the dining car."

"Trip, are you in position?" Coulson asks.

"Ready and waiting, sir," Trip answers promptly.

He and May have taken a sleeper cabin in First Class, and once there, May had exited via the window onto the roof, while Trip changed out of his 'rich traveller' gear, as Skye had persisted in calling it, into a ticket collector's uniform. It's now his responsibility to walk up the train to the dining car and slip a tracker onto the package. 

Once Trip confirms that the package has been tagged, the six of them disembark from the train at the next station where two local SHIELD agents meet them with two SUVs. 

Coulson takes over driving the first one, and Skye sits beside him, her laptop already open on her knees. Trip sits in the back together with Agosti, who had been driving this SUV. May takes the wheel of the second SUV, with FitzSimmons and Falco, the agent who'd been driving that SUV.

They've been driving for about twenty minutes when Skye says, "That's odd." 

"What?" asks Coulson immediately.

"The train's switched tracks, and it's stopping, but it's between stations." She frowns at the laptop and he glances over at the screen: she's hacked the program the railway operator uses to track their trains, and he can see a stationary blinking blob that he knows is the train, which should be moving.

"Where's the train stopped?" he asks. 

"About five miles west of here, right out in the countryside."

Coulson puts his foot down and they race away, Skye directing him where to turn at junctions as she's now got a road map superimposed over the railway map. He glances in the rear-view mirror and sees that May's keeping up with him.

Eventually Skye's directions bring them close to a very large villa. "The package has stopped moving," she tells him. "Guessing this is its final destination."

"Hopefully this is where Quinn is currently holed up," Coulson says.

"I count four warm bodies outside the house, one on each side, and four more inside the building," she tells him.

He nods, then pulls up at the side of the unmetalled road, and May pulls in behind. Everyone climbs out and they gather around Skye, who props the laptop on the hood of the SUV while they discuss their next move. Their opponents number eight, as do they, but the SHIELD team has three non-combatants whom Coulson has no intention of risking. He decides that Skye and FitzSimmons will remain with the SUVs, while he and the others approach the villa. May, Trip, and the two Italian agents will take on the four guards stationed outside, while Coulson himself will let himself in at the back somewhere. The other four will then join him and they'll tackle the four people inside the building, and hope that one of those four is Quinn.

"We want to take Quinn alive," Coulson tells them. "Everyone else, is fair game, but don't kill them if you don't have to."

The others agree, then they set off at a trot to cover the remaining ground to the villa.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Things move both fast and slow after that, or so it seems to Skye; she and FitzSimmons wait anxiously by the SUVs, listening in via their comms to the encounter between the SHIELD team, and Cybertek and Quinn. There seems to be a lot of noise – mostly gunfire, but also shouting, and to Skye the time seems to pass interminably slowly before Coulson's voice comes over the comms – but in reality it's only twenty minutes after the SHIELD team departed.

"Everyone's down, and we have both Quinn and the package secured," he says, his voice calm.

"Good job, sir," chorus FitzSimmons.

"Congratulate Skye," he answers. "Her op plan was excellent."

She feels herself blushing at his praise, and tries to deflect everyone's attention by asking, "Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine," he says in a reassuring tone. "May and Trip have a couple of scratches – nothing serious."

Skye breathes a sigh of relief at his words, and decides that she doesn't like not being in the field with him – it's far too nerve-wracking.

"The local agents will take care of transporting the prisoners," Coulson goes on. "We'll be heading back to the Bus."

"Since we're in Italy, let's get pizza tonight," Trip suggests, to much laughter, and Coulson eventually agrees that they will join Agosti and Falco for pizza in a couple of hours, after they've cleaned up, before they head back to the Hub.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Quinn is sent off to the Fridge, to Skye's immense relief, and Coulson reports back to Commander Hill to let her know the success of the op. He doesn't hesitate to sing Skye's praises to Maria Hill, which has her blushing a second time, and when he gets off the phone, she asks, "Why are you so determined for everyone to know I designed the op?"

"Because you did," he says. "You designed the op, and it went very well – you deserve the credit for that." He leans back in his chair and stares at her over his steepled hands. "Also, it paves the way."

"For what?" she asks, puzzled by the very intense way he's looking at her.

"Well, a few weeks ago, I invited you to consider the possibility of joining SHIELD. Now that Centipede's been taken down, you've fulfilled your obligation to us – not that I'm trying to get rid of you," he adds hastily. "The exact opposite in fact."

"But would SHIELD really agree to having me? I'm a Rising Tide hacktivist, remember." 

"Skye, it's hardly unusual for us to bring former black hats into SHIELD and turn them into white hats. And to be honest, a Rising Tide hacktivist is nothing compared to a former KGB spy."

"You're talking about Natasha Romanov," she says.

He nods. "You've done nothing but save lives since you and I met – which is hardly a major crime, after all. In fact, let me remind you that if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be sitting here, sane and whole. I'd have died or gone mad, or both, in Garrett's memory machine."

She takes a deep breath, then nods. "I'd like to become a proper agent," she tells him. She has wanted it ever since he first mentioned it, to be honest, but she wasn't sure she dared to say so – she's wanted things so many times, and then been disappointed in those desires when she hasn't got what she wanted, or worked for.

He grins, then gets to his feet and comes around his desk. He pulls her up out of her chair and into his arms, kissing her passionately, and making her moan.

"We'll have a proper celebration later," he tells her when he finally releases her to catch her breath. "Now, didn't somebody say something about pizza tonight?" he asks, and she chuckles. He looks light-hearted and relaxed now, and she realises just how tense he's been again the last few days.

"Are we going to tell the team I'm joining SHIELD?" she asks.

"Of course," he says, sounding surprised by the question. "FitzSimmons will be delighted. Trip too, in all probability."

"And May?"

"I'm going to ask May to be your Supervising Officer. She will work you very, very hard – but I know you can hack it, and don't worry – May's got a soft spot for you, although she'll probably kick my ass for telling you that, so don't ever repeat it if you love me."

She giggles. "I love your ass, at any rate." He mock-glares at her, and she laughs even harder.

"You have no respect for me," he complains, which doesn't help – she's hanging onto him now, because otherwise she'd fall over she's laughing so much.

"Poor Phil," she teases. "I'm such a trial to you, aren't I?"

He rolls his eyes. "It's torture, having you around."

"I'll make it up to you later," she whispers, and kisses him very thoroughly.

"Then I might forgive you."

"Good." She hugs him, then says, "We've still got to find Reinhardt."

"True," he says. "And you wanted to do some controlled tests with the Diviner."

"Yeah, I kinda put that idea aside in the search to find Quinn and put him away."

"Well tell me when you're ready to begin, and we'll get started," he says. 

"Actually, the search for Reinhardt's ongoing," she tells him.

He pulls back from her to look at her face, then guides her across to the couch. "Explain, please."

"You remember I took my laptop with me when we went to Florida?" He nods. "I uploaded Reinhardt's photograph and wrote some code to search for him using SHIELD's facial recognition software. It's already spent the last three weeks looking for Reinhardt's face using security cameras anywhere and everywhere in the world."

"I see." 

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"Of course not. I'm just surprised you haven't mentioned this before."

"Well we were focused on tracking down Quinn and taking him in. If the search for Reinhardt had turned up anything useful, I'd have told you."

"Okay."

"But yes, I want to do some tests – in safe conditions, obviously – so in the lab downstairs, if you think FitzSimmons will let me borrow their workspace."

"Are you likely to wreck it?" he asks, and she's not quite sure if he's serious or just teasing. 

"I hope not," she says. "I wouldn't want to get FitzSimmons in trouble – or you, for that matter."

"Tomorrow, then?" She nods, and he kisses her again. "Now, pizza, 'cos I can see I'm gonna need to keep my strength up."

She chuckles. "Oh yeah."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

The next morning they arrive in the lab after breakfast. Simmons is there already, and as they're exchanging greetings, Fitz comes hurrying in. Skye's carrying the Diviner, which she's found a box for, and she sets it down carefully on the workbench.

"You three had better wear gloves while you're in here with this thing," she tells them. "Because you don't want to touch it with bare skin, and Coulson, you'd better keep your sleeves rolled down."

He nods, then takes the gloves that Simmons passes him.

"What, exactly, are you going to do with that thing?" asks Fitz. He looks nervous, Skye thinks, and she wonders if he'd prefer not to be here.

"Well, find out what it can do – besides kill people it deems unworthy," she says. "Jemma, you can wire me up to any and every monitor you think is relevant, but I want to be able to move around." Her friend nods. "Fitz, do you have some mice you use for experiments."

"Of course," he says promptly. "Er, why?"

"Well, tell me if I'm wrong, but I kinda assumed you'd rather I didn't test the Diviner on you guys without first knowing what – beside kill people – it can do." 

"Uh, yeah, no," he says quickly, and moves across the lab to get some mice.

"Anything I can do to help?" asks Coulson.

"Takes notes for me, please," Skye says. "I think I'll have to concentrate quite hard while using this thing, so making notes? Not so easy."

"Of course." He turns to Simmons. "When Skye used the Diviner before, back in China, it more or less wiped her out, energy-wise."

"I remember you telling us that," she says immediately. She crosses the lab and fetches a couple of bottles of energy drink from the refrigerator, then grabs a handful of energy bars and carries it across to the workbench. Then she hooks Skye up to various monitoring devices, before giving her a nod.

"Okay. If anyone doesn't want to stay here for this, now's your chance to leave." She looks around at her friends, and they just give her expectant looks, so she shrugs. "All right then."

She opens the box in which the Diviner is sitting and immediately feels it thrumming with power – the alien intelligence inside it can sense her proximity, and seems to be eager for her to wield it. She takes a slow deep breath in, then breathes it back out again, just as May's begun teaching her, then she reaches into the box and grasps the Diviner. 

As before it responds immediately, lighting up orange all over, and Skye feels a surge of power pouring up her arm and into her body and brain. She keeps her attention focused, even though she can hear a low conversation break out between Coulson and FitzSimmons.

The alien intelligence doesn't speak to her in words, but she can sense its satisfaction that the 'Chosen One' wields it again, and that it's eager to be used.

She turns towards the cages of mice, and Fitz slides one across the bench to rest in front of her, while Coulson grabs the box the Diviner was in and moves it aside.

Skye stares at the white mouse and thinks, _Don't kill it. Make it sleep._ There's a surge of emotion from within the Diviner and she realises it's angry that she doesn't want to kill, but she grits her teeth and focuses her attention more firmly. _Don't kill it. Make it sleep,_ she directs it again.

A brief surge of orange light flares out of the Diviner, and touches the mouse, which immediately flops onto its side.

Skye immediately sets the Diviner down on the workbench, then looks at the others. "Is it dead?"

Her voice comes out flat and she sees Coulson, from the corner of her eye, giving her a worried look, but she keeps her gaze fixed on the mouse, waiting for Fitz's verdict.

"Alive, but unconscious," he tells her.

Skye breathes out a long controlled exhale, then back in again. "Good."

"Was that your intention?" Coulson asks, his fingers poised over the tablet he holds.

"Yeah."

He makes a note, then asks Simmons, "What effect did that have on Skye?"

She checks the monitor readouts. "Heart rate elevated slightly. Blood pressure dropped slightly." She frowns. "Huh. Brain biochem levels – " She pauses. "I've never seen anything like these readings, actually, sir. These levels are off the charts weird."

"Is that a technical term, Jemma?" asks Coulson with a smirk.

"It is now," she retorts, then flashes him a quick, self-deprecating smile, before turning to Skye. "How do you feel?"

"A bit antsy," she says.

"Another technical term, I suppose," quips Coulson, and she rolls her eyes at him.

"What about your energy levels?" asks Simmons.

Skye shakes her head. "Unaffected, as far as I can tell."

"Can I ask something?" asks Fitz.

"Sure." Skye gives him an expectant look.

"Why are you doing this? Why not just pack that thing away in the Fridge, or get it rid of it via the Slingshot?"

"Because I want to understand what I can do with it," she tells him. "Werner Reinhardt, or whoever he is now, had a mad on for it – and he killed my mother over it."

"I thought he killed your mother to rejuvenate himself?" asks Simmons.

Skye nods. "He did, but she was one of the worthy – her blood or DNA, or something else made her acceptable to the Diviner, and since he wanted to wield its power, he probably thinks that whatever he took from her makes him one of the worthy now."

"Do you think he is?" asks Coulson.

She shakes her head. "I don't know, but maybe not." She shrugs. "I honestly can't tell you. But I figure that I can use the Diviner to draw Reinhardt out, once we know what he's calling himself these days and where he is. Assuming he's not died since 1989."

She turns back to Fitz. "Reinhardt was a Nazi scientist, he was a member of HYDRA, and if he's still alive out there, I'm betting he hasn't changed much, aside from making himself look young again. If he thinks he can get his hands on the Diviner again, and that he'll be able to use it this time, then he'll want to. And he'll probably want to start up HYDRA all over again."

"But they were destroyed at the end of World War Two," objects Fitz.

"Wanna bet?" asks Skye. "Because, personally, I wouldn't bet on HYDRA being gone. I reckon it went underground and that Reinhardt went on recruiting people after Under Secretary Pierce so kindly let him out of the Rat."

Fitz and Simmons look alarmed at Skye's words, then they turn to Coulson. "Skye and I have discussed this possibility," he admits. "I can't say I'm a fan of the idea, but I suspect she's right."

"So if I can use the Diviner as bait to draw him out, then put him down," Skye tells Fitz, "I absolutely will."

"Kill him?" Fitz whispers. 

"If absolutely necessary," she says. "Can't say I _want_ to – well, if I'm honest, part of me does – part of me wants to rip him limb from limb, and make him suffer the way he made my mother suffer." She feels Coulson's hand on the small of her back, and takes a deep breath in and out again. "But, if I can put him down without killing him, that's what I'll do."

Fitz looks a bit stunned, but Simmons looks fierce. "I don't think you should worry too much about killing him," she says. Skye raises her eyebrows. "He is an evil man and gives science a bad name."

"True," Skye agrees. "Okay. Let's see what else I can do with this thing." She flexes her fingers, stretching the muscles, then twists her wrist back and forth a couple of times, before picking up the Diviner again.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson's equal parts fascinated and impressed by Skye these days. She's grown in self-confidence since he met her a few months ago: she carries herself more upright – not that she was exactly a shrinking violet before, but he'd occasionally seen her making herself smaller and more inconspicuous – now, though, she strides about the Bus like she knows she belongs there. She spends mornings in the lab, exploring the Diviner, then afternoons training with May or Trip – May's teaching her unarmed combat, while Trip's teaching her how to use firearms, and Coulson feels as if he can barely keep up with how fast she's learning everything. He can't help thinking that at the rate she's progressing, she'll be ready to take on Director Fury himself for the top job in just a couple of years, and the thought makes him smile.

Evenings she spends in Coulson's office – he's helping her to prepare for her SHIELD agent exam – and they go over old papers, and the manuals together, sitting side by side on the couch.

Everyone aboard the Bus knows by now that he and Skye are soulmates – their experiences surrounding his abduction by Garrett made that beyond dispute, so Skye sleeps in his bed at night, and no one thinks anything of it. Skye has asked what will happen once she becomes a SHIELD agent, but he's assured her that he will go to Director Fury himself, if necessary, to argue the case for them not being given different assignments. 

_"If he won't agree to you remaining on the Bus with me, I'll quit," Coulson says when they discuss it._

_"Wow, no, Phil, you can't do that," she says crossly._

_"Of course I can."_

_"No, you really can't. I won't have you throw away your career over me, not when SHIELD's been your life since you joined."_

_"Skye – " he begins._

_"Phillip J Coulson," she says, and he falls silent. She's never used his full name before, and her use of it now, combined with the fierce look she's giving him, is so compelling that he can't argue with her._

_"All right," he sighs, defeated. "I will ask Fury not to take you away from my team, and hope he agrees to let you stay."_

_"Good."_

Skye's been exploring the power of the Diviner for two weeks when at last she gets a ping on Reinhardt.

"His name's Daniel Whitehall now," she tells the team as they stand around the holo-table in the command centre, a photo of Whitehall up on the screen behind her. "He's CEO of a SciTech research company called – get this – Argolis." She rolls her eyes. "Not a hugely imaginative man, is he? His headquarters is in Austria. Home sweet home."

She taps on the holo-table and a map appears on the monitor behind her. "The red dots show everywhere there's a Argolis lab."

"But that's more labs than Centipede had," says Fitz.

"Yep," Skye says. "Turns out, Ian Quinn – not the only evil scientist in the world. Who knew?"

"If you're right about Whitehall recruiting for a new HYDRA," May says, "then we are in serious trouble."

Skye nods. "Director Fury's mobilising SHIELD teams even as we speak. Every one of those labs will be raided, and the staff taken in for questioning."

"But we're going after this Whitehall ourselves?" asks Trip.

"That's the plan", Skye says. "Well, it's not a plan-plan, not yet. But it's gonna be."

"Do you think Whitehall will let you capture him?" Trip asks, his tone doubtful.

"Honestly? No. I think he'll do his best to kill me and take the Diviner for himself."

"But you can stop him?" May asks. "Because I know you've been coming on in leaps and bounds training-wise, but you don't have any experience of combat in the field."

"Hence my hours in the lab every morning with the Diviner," Skye says. "Now I can control it, he can't take me."

"He could shoot you," Trip says, sounding worried now.

"Not gonna happen," Skye says. She taps on the holo-table and brings up a video recording from the lab. "Coulson's been trying to shoot me for three days now." 

Coulson watches May and Trip's faces as they watch the video – both look stunned and then impressed as they realise that whatever Skye's doing with the Diviner, he can't get a single shot through. He remembers how little he'd wanted her to conduct that particular experiment, and even less had he wanted to be the one to shoot at her, but she'd insisted, and in the end, she'd got her way. He had remembered then what Skye had repeated to him about Sister Agatha's views on Skye's stubbornness, and he'd found himself quietly sympathising with the nun. 

"What if he takes you by surprise?" May asks.

Skye shakes her head. "He couldn't."

"Why?" asks the older woman.

"When I wield the Diviner now, I can sense people's intentions."

"Read their minds?" asks Trip disbelievingly.

Skye shakes her head again. "Nope. Just sense someone's intentions."

"Damn," says Trip, and Coulson can tell he's both surprised and impressed. "Have you thought of a superhero name yet?"

Skye rolls her eyes at him as the others laugh. "I am _not_ giving myself a superhero name, Trip," she tells him firmly. 

"So what happens now?" asks May, and Coulson hides a smile – May's always the practical one.

"Now I design an op to bring Whitehall out into the open, and then we take him down."

"Are you going to even need us?" asks Trip. "Doesn't that Diviner thing make you all-powerful and invincible now?"

Skye shrugs. "Maybe it does – but do you want me to bet my life on that being the case?"

"No," says Trip instantly. "We'll have your back."

"Thank you." She looks around the table at them. "I'll let you know as soon as I've got the op worked out."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye confronts Whitehall - with consequences neither she nor Coulson expect.

It takes two days for Skye to come up with an op that Coulson will sign off on – he's absolutely adamant that no matter how much power the Diviner gives her, she is not to risk herself unduly, and she comes to realise that in Coulson she's met her match when it comes to stubbornness.

So marching into the Argolis headquarters in Austria, Diviner in hand, is definitely out of the question – not that she'd really favoured that plan, even if it did have the merit of simplicity. Instead, she uses her old Rising Tide contacts to gradually leak information on her 'find' of the Diviner while on a student archaeological dig. She posts photos and video of the Diviner: the photos show it in its inert form, while the video shows her handling it as it glows orange.

"That'll grab his attention," Skye says with satisfaction once the video's online. 

"But he's not going to be able to come storming over here and grab you, is he?" asks Coulson, then looks as if he regrets the question when she huffs loudly and dramatically.

"AC," she says in her most long-suffering tone. "No one can find me if I don't want them to find me. Even Tony Stark himself couldn't find me."

Coulson opens his mouth to make a joke, then closes it again, and she chuckles, which makes his eyes widen. "What?"

"Nothing," she says with a smirk.

He huffs this time, which makes her chuckle again, then she kisses him, which is hardly professional, but he doesn't seem to mind too much.

"Whitehall or someone from Argolis will get in touch after seeing the photos and video, then we'll negotiate over me letting him see the Diviner, and eventually I'll give in and agree to a meeting. Then we'll grab him."

"You sure you don't want me to ask Director Fury to just storm his headquarters?" he asks.

"Positive," she says firmly. "This is much too personal. I want to see his face when he discovers whose daughter I am, and when he finds out just what I can do."

"You know I'm not going to let you go and talk to him alone, don't you?"

"I would be offended if you did," she tells him.

"I'm serious, Skye." 

"I know that, Phil," she says softly. "And seriously, I want you right beside me – how could you think I wouldn't?"

He shakes his head, then kisses her, soft and sweet, and she sighs, before shifting to sit on his lap, which earns her a raised eyebrow.

"Do you mind if I snuggle?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "You okay?" he asks softly.

"Nervous," she admits. "I wouldn't say that in front of everyone, but I can tell you."

"The rest of the team wouldn't think any less of you for being nervous," he says in a reassuring tone.

"I know – it's just – " She shakes her head, and he tightens his arms around her.

"You don't want to appear less than confident."

"Yeah," she says quietly.

"I understand." He checks his watch, then asks, "Any objections to calling it a night?"

"Don't you have stuff you want to do?" she asks. She's used to them both working later than this.

"The only thing I want to do is go to bed with you," he says.

"Flirt," she says with a chuckle.

He rolls his eyes, then gets to his feet, still holding her, and she utters a little shriek of surprise, wrapping her arms more tightly around him. 

"Phil, some warning next time, please!"

That just earns her a chuckle, and she mock-glares at him as he carries her through to the bedroom.

"How soon do you think Whitehall will be in touch?" he asks as he begins to undress her.

"If he's as eager to get his hands on the Diviner as I believe, it'll be within the next twenty-four hours. Unless he and his people are sloppy about keeping an eye out for it – which I can't believe he is."

"Hmm." He leans in to kiss her, as he unbuttons her shirt, and she reaches out to reciprocate. He looks serious, she thinks, and wonders if he's worried she won't survive the encounter with Whitehall. She wouldn't blame him if he was worrying about that – in his shoes, she probably would be too, given her lack of field experience, and her as-yet untested combat skills. It's all very well to go three rounds on the mat with May, or to fire at paper targets with Trip, but she's not stupid – she knows that being in an actual fight with someone who's trained and experienced is going to be different. And even if Whitehall himself isn't a fighter, he'll have men with him who are. So if Coulson wants to take her to bed early, and distract her with sex, then that's okay by Skye.

He's gentle and tender when he makes love to her, and she lets him take his time with her, even though she's quivering with want, but later, when he's ready again, she pushes him onto his back, straddling him, and tells him, "I'm going to do my best to fuck you senseless now AC."

He looks startled by her declaration, but his eyes darken with desire, and his grip on her hips is firm as she guides his cock inside her.

"Skye." 

It's always such a turn on for her when he groans her name like that, and tonight it acts as a spur, making her almost merciless as she rides him.

"Come on, Phil," she urges, knowing he's close, but that he's still holding back in an attempt to send her over the edge first. "Come for me, come for me."

He brings his right hand down between their bodies and begins rubbing her clit, and she growls, then grabs his wrist. "I want you to come for me," she says in her sternest tone.

"Oh fuck, Skye." He gasps the words out, his eyes wide, and then she can feel him coming, and she relaxes her own self-control to follow him into orgasm.

She slumps down on top of him as his hands slide up her sides to cradle her body against his.

"So, do you have a thing for women bossing you around in bed, or is it just me?" she asks once she's caught her breath.

"You," he mutters, and she lifts her head, because he sounds almost ashamed of the admission.

"Is that a problem?" she asks softly.

He shakes his head, then kisses her softly. "I wasn't sure you'd want to," he admits.

She smirks. "I think I could stand to do that again." He smiles, and she kisses him back. "Go to sleep, Phil," she says, and he chuckles.

"Yes ma'am."

She giggles, then rolls off him, before disposing of the condom. She snuggles up to him, her head on his left shoulder, her left arm resting across his chest, and her left leg resting over his legs. 

"It's going to be okay, you know." She says it quietly, but she knows he's heard because his left arm, which is wrapped around her tightens slightly, before he presses a kiss to the top of her head. 

"I have confidence in you and your skills," he says, and she knows he means it. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to worry about you."

"I know," she tells him. "I would too, in your shoes, even though you're a vastly more experienced agent than I am."

"I love you, Skye."

"Love you too, Phil." She can feel sleep stealing over her now, and she hopes he'll sleep too. If this all goes down tomorrow, she wants him well rested, not a sleepless mess.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson's woken at six the following morning by Skye's cell phone, which is beeping persistently on the nightstand, and he reaches out to silence it, only for her to stir awake.

"Whatisit?" she asks, the words slurred together by sleep.

"Your cell," he tells her, and puts it into her hand.

"Oh!" Her startled tone wakes him properly.

"Whitehall?" he asks.

"Yeah – that was the alert to tell me he's emailed me. Well, not me, obviously – the account I set up for this op."

"It's six am," Coulson protests.

"Not in Europe," she reminds him, and he groans, then disentangles his limbs from hers, and she sits up, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"What does he say?" he asks, unable to wait for the news.

"He's already on a flight to the States from Austria. He wants to know how soon we can meet. Says he's been looking for the Diviner – which he refers to as 'your intriguing archaeological find' – " She snorts. "for many years, and that he hopes I'll show it to him." She starts tapping away at the phone before she's barely finished speaking. "Oh I'll show you, Mr Whitehall. You better believe it."

"So it's definitely happening," Coulson says, and hopes he doesn't sound as heavy as he feels. He must do, however, because Skye reaches out, without looking up from the phone, and grasps his arm. 

"Sooner he's taken out of circulation, the better, I'd say."

"Yeah, I know."

She taps the screen one final time, then turns her full attention on him. "It'll be okay, AC," she promises, and leans over to kiss him, long and languorous. "Perhaps you need something to distract you?" Her tone is suggestive, and her eyes are like pools. She sets the phone on the nightstand, then rolls her body onto his. "Would you like that, Phil?"

"Afterwards," he says, though it takes all of his willpower to get the words out. "Let's do this afterwards – by way of celebration." 

She smirks at him, her body shifting over his. "Sure about that?" she asks in a teasing tone. 

He's achingly hard already, but he's also made up his mind. "I'm sure," he tells her. "This is how confident I am that it'll go well today – that I'm suggesting we postpone this."

She chuckles. "Very well. Training then, and breakfast after that."

"Can I train with you?" He's a bit hesitant about asking because he normally leaves it to May, but today he feels like he wants to spend as much time as possible with her before she walks into the lion's den.

Her face lights up. "You're on," she says. She grabs his arm in a firm grip and half drags him across the bed. "Come on Phil, get up!"

He laughs. "You've no patience, have you?" he teases.

She shakes her head, then scrambles off the bed, and they pull on their workout clothes, then head down to the hanger where Skye usually trains with May. 

No one else is awake yet, so far as Coulson can tell, and that just makes this even sweeter, that it's just the two of them.

Which doesn't mean he's not glad when May turns up at six forty-five; Skye's got him face down on the mat, one arm pinned under her knees, the other twisted painfully across his back.

He taps the mat to signal his surrender, then groans when she releases him. "Never mind the Diviner," he tells her, "just hit Whitehall with that – he'll be begging us to take him away from you."

May's chuckle echoes around the space, and he pushes himself up from the mat to direct a feeble glare at his old friend. "You're an evil woman, Melinda May," he tells her.

She laughs properly at that. "You're out of practise," she tells him. "You should come down here more often and workout with us."

"I might," he says, "if I can ever get my arms working again."

That earns him twin smirks from the two women, and he scowls at them both before announcing he's going to grab a shower and some breakfast. As he makes his way up the spiral staircase he hears May asking Skye, "What was that all about?" and he hopes she won't embarrass him with her account of events.

Skye and May join him in the galley half an hour later, and Skye's carrying her tablet. "Whitehall's proposed a meeting at four," she tells him. "I've said yes."

"Where?" asks May a beat ahead of Coulson.

"At the Argolis building in LA."

"I'll contact Commander Hill," he says, "let her know. We'll coordinate the raids to take place simultaneously on all the Argolis building worldwide."

May nods. "I'll see about refuelling the Bus now," she says, "then we can leave as soon as you like."

"We'd better wake Trip and FitzSimmons," Coulson says, "and bring them up to speed."

"After breakfast," Skye says, and he smiles.

"Yeah, after breakfast." He knows that FitzSimmons don't function too well without having breakfast first. "Briefing in an hour, then."

"I'll go and wake them," Skye says as May heads out.

"Skye." He calls her name softly, and she turns back to him, eyes questioning. He stands, then wraps her in a hug. "I have faith in you."

"Thanks." She gives him a quick, chaste kiss, then walks out, and he heads to his office to contact Maria Hill.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Skye can feel the power of the Diviner thrumming in her bag as she leads the way into the elevator at the Argolis building, Coulson close behind her. May and Trip are waiting outside, although both of them had wanted to come in with Skye, along with a couple of squads of SHIELD agents, while FitzSimmons are waiting in the SUV, which is parked down the street a little. Skye and Coulson are both wearing tiny radio microphones while Coulson has a button camera on his shirt: he's ditched his tie and suit jacket, and since they know that the Argolis building is equipped with an airport style body scanner, he's unarmed, although May had been less than happy about that arrangement.

As soon as they step out of the elevator on the top floor a muscle-bound man with hard eyes meets them, gives them both the once over visually, then gestures for them to follow him as he leads them along the hallway and into a palatial office.

"Thank you, Jackson," says Whitehall, coming to his feet as Skye and Coulson are ushered inside. "Wait outside please." 

Skye sees the way Whitehall looks them both over, assessing them, then dismissing them as potential threats.

"How do you do? I'm Daniel Whitehall. You must be Skye."

He doesn't offer his hand, and Skye's simultaneously relieved and annoyed: the thought of touching him revolts her, but she considers it ill-mannered of him not to offer to shake hands.

He turns towards Coulson. "And you are?"

"This is my professor," Skye tells him. "I call him Professor Phil."

Whitehall nods. "Please be seated." He waits for them to take their seats, then settles into his own luxurious black leather chair. "So you found the Obelisk," he says. "It's been missing for quite some time, you know, and I was amazed when I saw the news that you'd found it."

"Actually, I didn't find it," Skye says. "It's been in the charge of SHIELD, a government agency, ever since the end of the Second World War – after Agent Peggy Carter took it from you in Austria."

He gapes at her, seeming totally stunned. "You are, or were, Werner Reinhardt, are you not?" she asks.

"I – yes. I don't understand." He gets to his feet quickly, but Skye's already on hers, and she pulls the Diviner from the messenger bag slung over her shoulder.

"You refer to it as the Obelisk," she tells him, "but it's actually called the Diviner." She sets it down in the middle of his desk. "Go ahead, I'm sure you're _dying_ to examine it after all this time."

He puts his hands behind his back, shaking his head slightly, and she bites back a smile of triumph. So, either he still can't touch it, or he doesn't believe he can. Either way, that makes things simpler for her and Coulson.

"You seem to know a lot about this object," Whitehall says, "and me. But you're a nobody – a young woman who's made a name for herself as a so-called hacktivist." He stares at her. "And yet I can feel the power in you – how is this possible?"

She ignores his comments about her (she cares nothing for his opinion) to focus on what she wants from this encounter. "The Diviner was responsible, directly and indirectly, for the deaths of both my father and my mother." She stares fixedly at him as she reaches out to brush her hand over the surface of the Diviner, and she sees the way he licks his lips as sweat begins to bead his forehead and upper lip when the orange light appears in response to her touch.

"What – " He pauses and swallows, then asks, "What do you mean?"

"It's quite simple. I used the Diviner to obliterate my father. He was obsessed with it you see. But that's your fault. You killed my mother for it – after you discovered that she, like me, could touch it without being killed. You wanted to know what made her different from the others whom you'd forced to touch it – and when you saw, back in Austria in 1989, that she hadn't aged during the forty-four years that you'd been incarcerated by the SSR, then later SHIELD, you were determined to use any and every means possible to rejuvenate yourself."

Skye's voice is flat with anger and Whitehall looks alarmed, then reaches towards the phone on his desk. "I wouldn't," she tells him casually. "I'd kill you before you got the first word out."

Whitehall looks at Coulson, probably hoping to find an ally in him, but Coulson gives him a hard stare back. "You're SHIELD," Whitehall says through gritted teeth.

Coulson nods. "And your days are done, Mr Reinhardt. All over the world, SHIELD agents are raiding your buildings and arresting your staff, so if I were you, I'd come quietly."

"No!" Whitehall's right hand flashes out from behind his back, and a dagger comes flying towards Skye. She picks up the Diviner, swinging it towards Whitehall and the dagger, and it rebounds back towards him, moving far faster. He cries out as the dagger slices across his upper arm, then clatters to the floor behind him.

Skye clasps the Diviner tighter, and Whitehall's eyes go wide with shock as the orange light intensifies. "You took my mother to pieces," she says coldly, "and for that I should end you. But I'll show you mercy, if you get down on your knees and apologise for the torture and murder of my mother."

Whitehall takes a step back, and Skye thinks it might even be involuntary, because his gaze is fixed on the Diviner and he looks both fascinated and revolted at the same time.

"But what makes you so special?" he asks, his tone disbelieving. 

Skye shrugs. "I've no idea," she says. "I don't much care either. It tells me I'm the Chosen One, but that's not much use to me."

"What? But – " he begins, and Skye starts around the desk towards him, and he backs away from her again.

"On your knees Werner Reinhardt," she says, allowing her anger to surface for the first time. "You destroyed my mother, you sent my father crazy with grief after he found her body – well, the empty shell you had tossed out into the woods like so much trash. Your obsession destroyed my family and ruined my childhood." 

He's backed into the corner between the wall and a large plate glass window now, and Skye's only a few paces from him. She's no longer aware of Coulson's presence in the room; her whole focus is on this man, who calls himself a scientist, but is nothing but a monster.

"Kneel," she says, and is slightly startled when her voice seems to echo with thunder. "Apologise."

She stands in front of him, the Diviner held in a tight grip, and feels power pulsing into her, feels the alien intelligence inside – its anger is white-hot and she wonders abruptly if it's going to kill her, too, but she doesn't loosen her grip.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson's watching Skye closely. Whitehall wasn't wrong about her having an aura of power, even he can feel it today – and that makes him very uneasy. The Diviner contains an alien intelligence, so Skye said, and it has occurred to him (he hopes not too late) that it's possible that it could use Skye to do something she wouldn't normally choose to do. He wants to take Whitehall in – wants to punish the man for his misdeeds – but he's not sure that's going to happen. He suspects that, whether Skye wills it or not, the Diviner is going to kill Whitehall, and he doesn't think there's much he can do to prevent that from happening. He's already called her name twice and she hasn't so much as looked at him, which is a very worrying development. 

He rounds Whitehall's desk, aware that by now May and the SHIELD troops must have entered the building and be on their way up here, rounding up the Argolis staff as they move from floor to floor. He stoops and scoops up Whitehall's dagger, and sees the man's eyes widen in surprise. Skye half turns, apparently distracted by Whitehall's reaction, and Coulson decides to take advantage of the break in her absolute concentration.

"Skye. Don't kill him," he says urgently. "Reinhardt needs to stand trial for what he's done. He – "

Coulson gets no further. Whitehall has also decided to take advantage of Skye's attention shifting focus, and he pulls out a gun, a Baby Browning, Coulson recognises. He fires the gun, not at Skye, but Coulson, who's already diving out of the way as Skye is turning back to Whitehall. Unfortunately, Coulson's not quite quick enough and the bullet thumps into his upper arm. He cries out in shock, and Skye screams, an ear-splitting sound of pure rage. As Coulson grabs his arm and falls to the floor, Skye has spun around, her right hand still clutching the Diviner, and she smashes it full force into Whitehall's face. He doesn't even have time to cry out as the Diviner instantly kills him, but the force of Skye's blow sends his newly-petrified body smashing straight through the window, where Coulson presumes it will shatter on the sidewalk below.

"Phil!" Skye's anguished cry cuts through his shock, and he looks up at her as she comes to kneel beside him. The Diviner's on the floor a short distance away and he gives it a malevolent look. 

"Let me see," Skye says, and he focuses his attention back on her. She eases his right hand away from the bullet wound in his shoulder, and before he can even formulate a sentence to tell her how to deal with it, her right hand, the one that has just been clutching the Diviner, is clamped over the bleeding hole.

He feels an immense heat in his arm, and cries out in horror, then he passes out.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Coulson's not sure how long he was unconscious for, but when he comes round, Trip and Simmons are kneeling either side of him, and he realises Simmons is cleaning the blood from his shoulder. He looks down, rather fearfully, and sees a fresh, angry-looking red scar.

"What the hell happened?" he asks, and is relieved to see May step into view.

"As far as we can tell, Skye healed your shoulder," says Simmons. "We saw her grab your shoulder, putting her hand over the bullet wound. You passed out as your arm glowed orange, then Skye drew her hand back and somehow she pulled the bullet out of your flesh. Then she held your arm again, and when she took her hand away, it was healed."

Trip puts a bottle of water into Coulson's free hand, and he swallows it down in grateful gulps.

"Where is Skye?" he asks.

"Gone," answers May.

"Gone where?" asks Coulson, struggling up to get to his feet as fear and worry gnaw at him.

"We don't know, sir," says Trip, his voice soft, but also worried. "By the time we reached this floor, she was already gone, and with you down, FitzSimmons saw nothing of her departure."

"Could she have gone back to the Bus?" he asks, frowning and wondering why she would have left him. "This doesn't make sense."

"She just killed a man, Phil," May says.

He frowns again. "She also killed her father, back in China."

May nods. "Yeah, to save the lives: yours, hers, and everyone else's from what you said. But this time, she didn't do it to save lives – she did it to punish Whitehall for attacking you, for killing her mother."

"We have to find her," Coulson says urgently.

"Good luck with that, sir," says Fitz from somewhere behind Coulson. He turns quickly, then staggers, and Trip's hand grasps his arm to keep him upright. 

"What do you mean?" asks Coulson.

"Well, you know Skye, sir, she's brilliant with computers, and she's been training to be a SHIELD agent – I'd say the chances of finding her if she doesn't want to be found are few."

"Sir, I really think we should get you back to the Bus," says Simmons. "You lost quite a lot of blood before Skye saved you."

"Simmons is right," May says. "We might find Skye back there."

"But you don't think so," Coulson observes.

May shrugs. "Probably not. You need to report back to Commander Hill, at any rate."

Coulson closes his eyes, then pinches the bridge of his nose. Suddenly he feels too old for this.

"Yeah," he says heavily. "Let's get back to the Bus."

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Back at the Bus, Coulson makes his report to Maria Hill, who tells him that their ops worldwide have gone according to plan, and all Argolis staff are currently under arrest, and the long process of questioning them to determine if Whitehall has resurrected HYDRA has begun.

Coulson then submits to Simmons' ministrations as she checks that he's taken no permanent damage from the bullet. She recommends that he get some rest, and he promises that he will, but all he can think about is Skye, and the fact that she's not here. He'd promised her a celebration if the op had succeeded but she's not here to celebrate with.

He makes his way out of the lab and starts climbing the stairs to his office, then he has a thought. He hurries back down the spiral staircase and sticks his head into the lab. 

"I might know where Skye is," he says, then turns on his heel and hurries over to Lola, before Simmons can even begin to ask for an explanation.

He reverses the Corvette down the ramp, spins it through a one-eighty, then drives off the airfield and into the streets. He's just remembered they're in Skye's old home town and there are a couple of places she might have gone before she heads out of the city, if she plans to do that rather than simply lying low until Coulson and his team leaves.

He still has Miles' address in his phone, and he goes there first. When he knocks on the door, however, a young woman he doesn't know opens it and tells him, after a confusing few minutes, that Miles had moved out six weeks ago and gone back to Austin, his own old home town. 

"You haven't seen this young woman here today, have you?" Coulson asks, showing the young woman a picture of Skye from their Florida trip, and feeling relieved he had it on his phone still.

"Sorry mister, never seen her before. She your daughter?"

Coulson shakes his head. "No, nothing like that." He thanks the woman, then hurries back to Lola, and points the car in the direction of the coffee shop Skye had taken Mike Peterson to on that memorable day when they'd first met.

He's barely parked the car when Skye comes out of the coffee shop in question and begins walking towards him. She's got her phone in her hand and she's so intent on it that she doesn't even see him, and it's easy for Coulson to step into her path and clasp her shoulders in a loose grip.

"Skye."

She looks up, startled, and starts to pull away, then stops, waiting. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and look huge.

"Oh love," he says softly, and wraps his arms around her.

For a moment she doesn't respond, and then she's clinging to him, and sobbing brokenly on his shoulder.

"Please don't go," he says when her sobs have subsided into hiccoughs. "If you go, who'll have my back? Who'll save me from the Garretts of the world?"

"I can't stay," she says, but she doesn't sound very convincing.

"Yes you can," he says softly. "I'll help you deal with this. So will May, and Trip, and FitzSimmons too, in their own way."

"I don't want to leave," she admits quietly, "but I think I should."

"I don't think you should," he tells her. "And if you don't want to, I see no reason you should. Let us help you, please?"

"I would miss you, if I left," she concedes.

"Well, and how do you think I'd feel?" he asks. "You're my soulmate."

"And you're mine."

"Well, then."

She leans against him, and he keeps his arm around her shoulders as he guides her back to Lola.

"Will you let me take you home?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah."

He takes her bag from her and stows it in the trunk, then he ushers her into the passenger seat, before climbing into the driver's seat. "Home it is then." He pulls out into the traffic, and heads back towards the airfield. She'll get through this, he's sure, and her team will help her. He glances over at her, huddled in the passenger seat and reaches over to grab her hand in his, squeezing her fingers, and trying to convey comfort, and strength, and his love for her.


End file.
